


Warmth in a Seemingly Cold Heart

by AShipperWithNoLife



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Bad Writing, Depression, Fluff and Angst, Suicide Attempt, Suicide Attempt Reference
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 23:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 50,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8688271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AShipperWithNoLife/pseuds/AShipperWithNoLife
Summary: Being a nation is rather difficult, and sometimes, it can push someone into an endless pit of despair. When America believes that there is nothing that can save him from the infinite loop of hardships he's stuck in, he finds that the one who can relate to him the most, the one who just wants him to be happy happens to be a nation that can make him cringe in disgust any day.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, this is my first time posting on this site. Just sort of curious to see what the people on here will think of my story. Just because I tried doesn't mean that it's good.

America was returning from the meeting to his hotel room. Words can not begin to describe just how egregious the conference had turned out. For one, every other nation aside from him was actually okay with having the meeting in Russia (or rather, they were much too frightened of the intimidating nation to really object). Of course, America tried to convince the others that this would be a terrible idea, but as always, his words were completely disregarded, as everyone assumed he was just being an idiot. When he continued to ramble on, in hopes of grabbing everyone's attention, he was eventually told in a very compassionate manner (meaning that he was yelled at, but he was just too used to that) by England to just stop talking, since he's too stupid and might cause another pointless war. Surprisingly, America did just stop talking after that, for his seemingly everlasting determination was used up when he finally realized that no one was ever going to listen to him.

Sometimes, he wondered why he even bothered going to the meetings when he was constantly shunned for his ideas. Of course, his boss wouldn't be too thrilled if he just started skipping them, but surely his president also noticed at one point or another that the other nations completely disregarded him? Well, whenever he did try to explain that to his boss, he was always told that he needed to present himself in a more professional way, since how he normally acts during things such as meetings tends to give off a vibe that he is not taking it too seriously. When he tried to defend himself and say that he did take them seriously, the only response he received in return was a, "Well, you're just going to have to change the way you act, because making that claim is not going to change the way others view things."

America simply didn't understand why he would have to change. His attitude towards important events seemed to do him plenty of good in the past, so he should've had no problem during meetings. Besides, didn't he always follow those simple, unwritten rules on how to make himself heard? Well, of course he did. He was loud, he was confident, he could speak clearly without even mispronouncing or stuttering on one word; so people should've been taken him seriously. Instead, he was always talked down to as if he was just some child trying to barge into an adult's business. Although, he couldn't necessarily say that people treated him exactly as they would treat a child, since they weren't nearly as gentle towards him.

If what he had to go through before the meeting even started wasn't enough to make poor America miserable, then the actual conference itself definitely did it for him. This time during the meeting, instead of having some 'ridiculous' plan put together, he didn't even bother making any presentation. The only thing he did bring was some blank paper and a pen, since he figured that maybe just being silent for once and observing every single thing his peers had to say would change things for the better. For once in his life, he was actually hoping that he could go unnoticed, just as his brother, Canada, always was. Somehow, not even that seemed to work out, for someone just had to cause some sort of conflict with him, "America, it's your turn to present, and this time, you'd better have something worth sharing."

"No," was America's firm response, "I don't have any presentations today."

"What do you mean, 'you don't have any presentations today'? Have you become even more lazy?"

"What are you even doing here when you're not even participating?"

"Are you ever going to pay your debt?"

At that point, America just wanted to bang his head on the table until there was a large pool of blood on the floor, but of course, he knew that he couldn't just do that, since it wouldn't have done anything for him. Instead, he just settled for resting his head on one of his hands, and waited for the others to just stop yelling at him. By the time they were finished, America decided that it would be safe to just rest his head in his arms on the table until the meeting was over. No longer, did he care for taking notes on what the other nations were presenting.

By the time the meeting was finally over, America immediately started packing up his things, and started to head out of the building. This time, instead of going out through the exit that every other nation was headed for, he decided to go through the one that people seemed to forget about. He was about to walk outside to be met with the gelid outdoors of Russia, but when he felt a tap on his shoulder, he immediately halted. Dread began to lurk within the pits of his stomach, but he turned around anyways to find that the person who was trying to grab his attention was Canada. America furrowed his eyebrows in confusion at the fact that his brother didn't appear to be angry with him, and wondered why anyone would want to be more welcoming towards him, so he decided to ask, while making sure that his hopes weren't too high, "Matthew, is there something you need?"

"Alfred," more confusion was prickling in America's gut when he heard the concern in Canada's voice, "You haven't been acting like your usual happy self lately. Is something wrong?"

A smile was now present on America's face, although, it didn't quite meet his eyes. If that wasn't enough to make Canada cringe, the laughter that followed right afterwards completed the scene. Perhaps to the less observant, America would've appeared to be fine, but being a shy individual, and hardly ever having someone to talk to, Canada was able to learn how to read the emotions of others just from being a spectator of everyone's actions, and it was almost as if they were a book with simple writing that even someone with poor comprehension skills could understand. Despite the fact that more worry was now present on Canada's face, America explained, "Please, Canada. There's really nothing for you to worry about. I'm fine. I was just a little tired today, that's all."

Canada sighed at this, almost ready to just give up, but instead, he continued to proceed, "Alfred, I'm your brother. You know that you can talk to me if something's bothering you. And you know perfectly well that I would never speak poorly of you, and obviously not gossip about your problems, because people just don't notice me anyways…"

He really did hate bringing up his loneliness to his brother, but Canada knew that it might have been the only thing that could possibly encourage America to open up to him. However, not even his last resort seemed to work on his stubborn brother, for his tone became slightly irritated, "Canada, I'm fine. You know perfectly well that I can handle what the other nations say to me."

Then, the smile returned to America's face as he added, "Besides, they're just being ignorant for not listening to my epic ideas. They'll see one day that the hero was right all along, so what's there to worry about?"

Canada still wore an expression of uncertainty. There really didn't seem to be as much heart put into America's small heroic speech as there usually was, but he eventually decided to not dwell on it any longer, and just tell him in a cautious voice, "Whatever you say."

With that said, America left in order to return to that hotel he was staying at.

As America continued to think about the events that led up to the calamitous meeting, and the current day itself, he hadn't even realized that he had passed the hotel he was staying at during his mindless wandering until he was right at the edge of some forest. Then, he glanced behind himself to see if he could find any familiar sidewalks that would lead him back to the hotel, but of course, since he was not paying any attention, he couldn't recall anything. America sighed at this, and returned his gaze towards the forest. He had a basic understanding of the Russian language (just as he did every language, since that was something required for a nation to know. At least, for the ones that had to interact with many other nations.), and could've just asked someone for directions, but decided against it, since he was starting to feel too ashamed of himself to want to be seen by anyone. Therefore, he entered the woods, hoping that he would never have to deal with another pair of judgmental eyes scorching through his already damaged ego ever again.

By the time he was in the middle of the forest, snow began to fall. At any other time when America was only wearing his bomber jacket with his regular clothes, a pair of boots, and a pair of gloves, he would've been furious with the sudden display of chilly weather. However, he was finding the slow pace in which the snowflakes were falling to be rather peaceful. For a moment, their captivating beauty was actually able to make him forget about his own personal conflict. Then he remembered that he was still in Russia, and he had already made it forbidden to find anything about that nation great in anyway.

Since his mood was now ruined by the fact that he remembered he was still in Russia, and he had just absentmindedly considered his snowflakes beautiful, he continued to trudge through the deep snow. His face was beginning to sting due to how frigid the air was becoming, but he really couldn't of cared less if he received frostbite at that moment. It probably wasn't even possible for nations to have a terrible case of frostbite that world require them to lose a body part anyways, since something catastrophic would have to effect their country in order for that to happen.

When America grew extremely exhausted from having pushed himself to walk through snow that was at least two and a half feet deep, a blizzard began to pick up, making it much more difficult for him to move forward. By the time his vision dimmed, due to how fatigued he was, America decided to just collapse in a pile of soft snow. Then, he curled up in a vain attempt to keep himself warm. After a while of just lying there and shivering, America looked around himself in hopes of being able to detect what was in his surroundings with his lack of clear vision, but was unable to see anything.

At that point, it didn't matter if America was still in the middle of the forest or not, for he could feel himself giving up on any motivation to keep himself awake. When he closed his eyes, a thought came to him, Maybe it would be for the best if I just froze here, and no one ever found me. They would never have to deal with how much of a loudmouth I am, or deal with my stupidity. Besides, maybe I'll eventually just die off if I stay frozen for long enough time. It may hurt my citizens for a while if they don't have someone to represent them, but they'll just find some other representative that's more qualified for the job than I'll ever be. Really, they're better off if I just die. I'm just so sick of the hardships of being a nation anyways, but mostly, I'm just sick of living this immortal life.

Tears began to fall from America's closed eyes as a smile of relief decorated his features. Of course, there was no guarantee that he would die if he went through with this, but even the thought of being forgotten was enough to fill him with glee. America continued to think about how much more functional he thought the world would be without him until he finally fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.


	2. Chapter 2

America slowly opened his eyes to find that the world around him was completely blurry. The edges of his vision were somewhat dark, but he could still see some colors. Keeping his eyes open was quickly becoming a chore, for it felt as if his eyelids weighed two hundred pounds, but he continued to force himself to stay conscious anyways, as he was somewhat curious as to know what was going on in the world around him. When he struggled to find a memory as to what had happened before he woke up, he found that he couldn't really recall much of anything, and he was much too tired to really care for what he did remember. Something told him that he should be more cautious and actually start observing his surroundings, in case he was in any danger, but he was already incapable of thinking straight at that moment, so really, trying to think the situation through was only going to give him a headache.

There was another part of America that didn't really want to leave wherever he happened to be at that moment. His limbs felt as if the muscles in them had been replaced with lead, and he only had one minuscule spark of energy left in his entire body. Sure, he was shivering due to how frozen he felt, but he could tell that whatever soft cover was wrapped around him was much warmer than the frigid, dark world he had known before he lost consciousness.

Then, America flinched when he felt something warm and gentle (a hand was the only guess he had for what it could be) stroke his hair and rub his cheek. At first, he had no idea whether to be frightened or not of this figure that he was unable to recognize due to how blurry his vision was at the moment, but soon enough, the heat that was generated from the conduction of the touch was enough to make him start nuzzling the hand, as a silent message that he wanted more warmth. This continued for a bit as America began to regain some energy, enough to make it easier for him to keep his eyes open, but of course, it was not enough to make him able to move his limbs. He was given a small pat on the head before the hand retreated. Then, he heard a voice that was so soft, he could've sworn he went dizzy with relaxation from how gentle it was, "I will get you more blankets."

A pang or rejection started to form within his chest when he heard the person who was just comforting him leave the room. Tears prickled at his eyes; he just wanted to cry and beg for the person to come back, but there was something that told him to just appreciate the affection that was already given, since asking for more would seem quite selfish of him. Unfortunately, this went ignored, for his memories from before he lost consciousness finally started to come to him. He remembered how the other nations treated him when he tried to stop being a burden to them; remembered how he purposely disposed of himself in some random pile of snow to hopefully be buried and never seen again due to the blizzard's rage. Whoever was taking care of him now was most likely the one who saved him from that fate, and sure, maybe he should've been exultant at the fact that someone cared enough to save him, but America had been messed up and broken for so long, so the only conclusion he could draw from this was that whoever was taking care of him right now only wanted him to suffer.

The feeling of being unwanted by the hearts of others, and only being desired for the sake of satisfying everyone's need to vent all of their pain to him tore into his chest. Tears began to trickle from his eyes with such haste that his cheeks were completely damp within a matter of seconds. A strangled sob escaped from his throat, and even if he was trying to keep the rest of the sobs silent, he eventually found that he was unable to do so, for they began pouring out of his mouth as if that was what he needed to do in order to breath. The only thing that came to his mind, that also continued to repeat itself was, Why couldn't they just let me die!?

The sobbing never ceased even when he heard the door open once more. Perhaps if America wasn't so mentally damaged, he would've been filled with relief at the fact that this person kept their promise, but instead, it only made him sob even harder, since for one, he didn't believe that he deserved such affection, and two, he believed that this person was only taking care of him due to the common instinct that people had to take care of others who were sick, and they would harshly leave him on his own once more as soon as he was better. Maybe they'd even yell at him for being sick in the first place and relying on them to take care of him.

America never moved when he heard the person approach him, nor did he care when he heard what sounded to be a glass bowl being gently set down on a table of some sort. Sure, he was somewhat hungry, but he just felt so guilty at the thought of 'wasting' food on someone as 'undeserving' as himself. He wanted to move out of the way when he saw the figure slowly come closer to him, but he was too weak and too distressed to move. Eventually, he felt blankets being wrapped tightly around his form, as soft words were muttered to him in a language he was unable to decipher at that moment.

By the time the blankets were securely wrapped around his body, he felt himself being sat up and pulled into a tight embrace. Then, there was a sudden itch to his throat that caused him to start coughing rather violently, almost to the point where he was practically gagging. Soon enough though, his coughing fit was ended early due to the comforting rubbing that was now on his back. However, that wasn't enough to stop the sobbing, which only ceased when America became much too exhausted to continue being upset with himself.

He was held a bit longer while he continued to sniffle and lean into the strong figure, until one of the arms holding him left to grab the bowl that was set down on what America assumed to be a nightstand, and then held it up to the tired nation's lips before saying, "Drink this. It will make you feel better."

America complied, swallowing the contents of the bowl in large, hungry gulps. The person holding the bowl slowly tipped it as time passed by, as they tried their best to match the pace in which America drank so that they could prevent the chances of forcing America to drink much more than he could possibly hope to swallow, and maybe cause him to choke or accidentally spill the liquid all over himself. While America continued to drink the liquid (which he assumed was some sort of soup, since it seemed to share the same qualities as one), he couldn't help but be relieved with the fact that the person feeding him was giving him enough time to breathe and chew up the rare solid he found in the soup instead of just forcing it down his throat.

By the time America was finished drinking the soup, a warmth started to develop in his stomach. As soon as he heard the bowl being set down, he was immediately pulled into yet another hug. This time, his head was held close to the person's shoulder, as fingers gently rubbed against his scalp. America closed his eyes and sighed with relief as he felt himself go limp. Soon enough, the light touch caused him to fall asleep in the other's arms, and this time, despite his shivering, he felt somewhat warm, instead of feeling as if he was literally turning into ice. Although, he still did feel empty on the inside.


	3. Chapter 3

Once Russia was finished with his morning routine, after taking a long rest to recover from the stress of having to do a bunch of paperwork right when the meeting was finished, he glance out the window to see how much snow had piled up while he was asleep. He couldn't help but groan with despondency when he noticed that at least one foot of snow had accreted on top of the layers of older snowy sheets. General Winter must have really had something against him that year, for it was only the month of January, and in the past week, Russia had already come across some snow banks that were taller than him by at least a few inches. As much as a harsh, gelid winter did dispirit him, he knew that things could've been worse for him that year, since there had been more times than he wanted to remember when he was forced to defend his country in the middle of a blizzardy night. Of course, the extreme, chilly weather never seemed to affect him too much, since he was always prepared with decent clothing, and knew how to keep himself warm. It was the fact that he would always feel guilty later, after witnessing a nation, who was clearly not suited for the cold weather, become weak, and practically begging for his mercy. Especially if he didn't show them any clemency at the time, and started to do cruel things to them for the sake of war.

After staring out the window a while longer, Russia eventually sighed, and decided to start dressing up in a warm winter jacket, boots, and gloves before heading outside to start shoveling the snow. First thing was first, he would have to clear the snow off of the steps of his house. It would be no difficult task, since he always made sure they were clear and easy to climb, even on the days that he knew there would be a very low chance of him going out anywhere. Russia had learned the hard way that it was vital to keep up with ridding the steps of any snow, since there was one winter when he had become too depressed to really care much about doing any chores in his lonely household. The snow on the steps had become compressed and slippery from the one or two times he would ever go out during a week, and by the time it was March, the stairs ended up becoming more of a slope. One day, when he was struggling to climb up the stairs, he ended up slipping and bumping his head on one of the wooded edges that were still sticking out. The result; he ended up angrily chopping the dense snow up with his shovel and flinging it into his yard as far as he could until he was too exhausted to continue doing so.

Once Russia was finished sliding the snow off the sides of the steps, which was completed only in a matter of minutes, he began to start on the sidewalk. However, the task was already interrupted after the first scoop of snow, as when Russia was about to dispose of the nuisance into one of the snow piles he created from shoveling that year, he noticed some fabric sticking out here and there; right underneath the most recent snow. Russia stuck his shovel into the snow, in order to keep it in place, before approaching the strange disturbance. Once he was right next to the snow pile, he began to wipe off some of the snow from the fabric, until a gloved hand was revealed. This caused Russia to jump and just stare in shock for a bit, but it wasn't long before he was wiping more snow off of the body, out of curiosity for whether this person was still alive or not. Soon enough, a rather familiar set of blonde hair was revealed, and not too long after that, he was able to see, America's face?

Questions began to swarm around in his mind. He couldn't even begin to come up with a valid reason as to why America would be lying under a bunch of snow in his yard. To make the situation even more complicated, the young nation appeared to be unconscious. Russia removed one of his gloves in order to feel America's cheek, only to find that it was just as cold as the snow covering him, and for some odd reason, it also appeared to be stiff. Then, Russia tried to press his fingers into the cheek, hoping that he was only imagining things, and that it would be squishy. Instead, it remained as rigid as ice. That was when Russia realized something; some of the water in America's body must have froze, making a large portion of the skin and muscles in his face inflexible.

If America was a human, he would've had a terrible case of frostbite; no, he would just be dead, since by the looks of it, he appeared to have been lying outside all night, but since he was a nation, and it wasn't his citizens suffering, or quite possibly dying off from the extreme conditions of Russia's country, his body would instead just freeze over until he was defrosted. In fact, America could even remain frozen, to the point where he was practically an ice statue, for three hundred years; not breathing or circulating any blood, and still live. That was, if he didn't have any citizens he had to constantly worry about, since if something severe happened to him, it would influence his citizens, and therefore lead to the death of a large portion of his people. Considering the fact that America's climate would become extremely frigid if he stayed frozen for such a long time, his citizens would would be unable to grow any food, and would ultimately be killed off by starvation and harsh weather. Which would lead to his own death.

Of course, Russia could've stood there and think about how impressive a nation's body could be, along with it's strange influence on the people it represents (or how it's citizens can affect the nation's body as well), but that simply wasn't important to him at that moment. After all, he was beginning to notice that America's breaths appeared to be pained. As if his lungs were starting to freeze over, and become as stiff as the rest of his body. That would mean that the rest of his organs and blood would follow afterwards, along with the muscles and skin that still wasn't frozen, which would make it even more time consuming to defrost him. Of course, it would've taken a while, even for the rest of his surface start freezing up, since his body temperature would have to drop low enough for everything inside of him to start turning into ice. There really was no need to hurry, but Russia wanted America to be well as soon as possible. Therefore, he put his glove back on, and began to shove the rest of the snow off of the frozen nation before lifting him up into his arms. Even if America did look a bit awkward at that moment, since he was still stuck in a fetal position and his body would hardly move from the affects of gravity, due to it being somewhat frozen, Russia didn't care. All that mattered was that he defrosted America before any possible damage could be done to his citizens. Even if it was quite minor. Shoveling the sidewalk could wait for another day.

As soon as he entered his house, Russia set America down on the couch that was closest to the fireplace, before gathering up some wood, and setting it down on the hearth. Then, he lit the wood on fire. After that, he wrapped a thick blanket around America's form, so that when he was finally able to generate more of his own body heat (even though he wasn't necessarily entirely frozen, Russia knew that his body temperature was still quite low), he could create some conduction with the blanket in order to warm up. Once that was all taken care of, the only thing Russia would be able to do was wait until America was completely defrosted, so that he would be able to do more to help him warm up, and recover from the chills and sickness he was bound to have for at least a week.

A few hours had passed, and America was finally shivering. A sign that the ice that developed within his body had finally melted (of course, that was quite a short amount of time for how frozen he was, but nations could recover from such things with a great amount of haste). Therefore, Russia decided to remove the thick blanket from America's form, which was now wet from all of the melted snow, and decided to carry the unconscious nation into the bathroom so that he could dry him off and change him into some new clothes. He knew that America might end up being nonplussed by this when he was awake, since he would definitely notice that he was wearing different clothes and know that someone would've had to strip his previous clothing and dress him up while he was unconscious, but it had to be done, if Russia wanted him to recover as quickly as possible.

Once he was finished changing him into the smallest set of pajamas he had (which were still somewhat baggy on America, but at least they stayed on), Russia picked him up once more so that he could carry him back to the living room where the fireplace was. On the way there, he stopped by one of his closets so that he could retrieve another thick blanket to wrap around America, since the previous one was soaked. By the time Russia was in the living room, he sat down on an armchair and set America down on his lap while he began to hold him so that he was curled up in his arms in a comfortable position. After all, America still seemed to be shivering quite a bit, and he knew that the warmth of another person, along with some blankets while sitting next to a fire was one of the best ways to warm up.

The two nations stayed this way for a long time, while Russia stared into the fire that was still very much alive. His finger absentmindedly brushed against America's scalp as he began to ponder for a reason as to why America was unconscious in a snow pile. Especially on his yard of all places. Perhaps it could be because the young nation had some business with him, and decided to walk all the way to his house in the middle of a blizzard. Then again, Russia knew that even if it was contrary to common belief, America wasn't stupid enough to do that. He would've at least waited for the blizzard to die down if, by any almost non existing chance, he did decide to walk to his house in the middle of winter. Besides, it wasn't very probable that America would want anything to do with him in the first place.

Then, another theory suddenly appeared within Russia's mind; what if America was extremely ill, and became delusional some time after the meeting? By mere coincidence, it was possible that a sickness could've caused him to mindlessly wander all the way to his house before collapsing. At first, Russia wasn't entirely convinced that this was the reason why, but when he thought back to the meeting, he began to realize that America didn't seem to be doing so great. He was unusually quiet, and when the other nations started to yell at him for not presenting anything, it looked as if he was trying to block out their voices. A sign that he could've been experiencing some sort of terrible head ache. Of course, America wasn't coughing or sniffling, but having a basic understanding on his pride, Russia knew that he would've been able to make the urge to do so almost non existent. Lastly, America appeared to be pale in color, and their were dark circles under his eyes, as if he had been losing sleep. As realistic as this may seem to be, perhaps it would be better if Russia just asked America how he ended up unconscious in his yard. Although, he would be lucky if the young nation decided to cooperate with him.

Once Russia was finished coming up with a momentary conclusion as to why America was unconscious in a pile of snow, his mind began to wonder to the scars he saw on the young nation's arms. There was a long one on each of his forearms, reaching all the way from his wrists to his elbows. Russia could tell that these scars were what remained of some large, nasty gashes. Ones that held some sort of purpose. Perhaps they came from some sort of catastrophic event that impacted America's citizens greatly, or maybe, he was the one who did this to himself, and they were suppose to represent an internal conflict of his that hadn't been resolved. When Russia thought about the second possibility for a moment, he couldn't help but mentally slap himself. Most of the time, America would always express an overwhelming amount of glee, so why would he ever see a need in harming himself?

All of his thoughts were put to an abrupt end when he noticed how peaceful America's expression appeared to be. The young nation's seemingly flawless face was mesmerizing, to say the least. His eyebrows were perfectly shaped, his skin was clear, his lips were only slightly chapped from the sickness he most definitely had, and then there was that nose. Words could not even begin to describe how much Russia loved that small, cute nose. Really, he was surprised that he wasn't jealous of his fellow nation. Especially since he thought that America was more attractive than he could ever hope to be, what not with him being stuck with a larger than average nose and a strange hair color. After all, even in the present day they still had petty fights over who was better at what.

Russia smiled with adoration when he saw that America was currently breathing with his mouth. Of course, mouth breathing was usually something that most would find quite revolting, but America seemed to be able to even pull that off! However, that was only for when he was asleep, but it was still impressive, to say the least. Eventually, as Russia continued to admire America's appearance, and think about some things that had happened recently, he began to grow drowsy, and then fell asleep while still holding America.

When Russia awoke from his slumber, he looked out the window to find that it was dark out. Then, he glanced over at America and noticed that he was still curled up in his arms; shivering, but sound asleep none the less. Since the fire had been out for quite a while, the only light that was one in the room was coming from a lamp, which Russia had forgotten to turn off when there was finally enough light coming into the house from outside that morning. It really did take a while for the sun to finally come up in the morning during the winter in Russia. Not that there really was much sunlight during that time of the year in the first place, since most days were cloudy.

Since Russia was growing tired of sitting in the armchair with America on his lap, he decided to stand up with the young nation held bridal style in his arms, and set off towards one of his guest bedrooms (not that anyone really visited him). Once he reached his destination, he set America down on the bed, and pulled the blanket that was already on the bed over the ill American, making sure that it was wrapped tightly around him. His former enemy seemed to need the extra warmth, so he didn't see any possibility of America feeling uncomfortable from too much heat. Once the young nation was tucked in, Russia headed over to the kitchen to start preparing a soup. Even if he was sure that America would have no problem recovering from his sickness, he was finding it difficult to ignore the twinge of worry that was beginning to linger in his mind.


	4. Chapter 4

America slowly opened his eyes, as he began to gradually regain consciousness. His mind was still hazy, and his vision remained blurry as time passed by, but at least he had just enough strength to move his limbs, which came to him as a much needed relief, for one of the first things he could recall before he fell asleep in the mysterious individual's arms was the fact that he was unable to move his body. After a while of keeping his eyes open, and trying to clear his mind so that he would be able to remember previous events, he noticed that although his vision was still quite blurry (which was normal if he wasn't wearing his glasses), it was no longer dark around the edges. That itself brought him enough relief to put him in an ecstatic mood, despite his exhaustion. Once again, he actually didn't remember his thoughts of self hatred right away, and could actually enjoy himself for once.

However, there always had to be something there to ruin his mood, for a voice interrupted his thoughts. One he despised so much, that he would rather stab a knife through his eardrums, than have it dare speak to him, "Good morning, Amerika."

America turned his head to glare the blurry figure that was at the side of his bed, and responded by saying the only thing that came to mind in a dangerous tone with a scowl upon his face, "Russia."

Russia appeared to be oblivious to the aggression in America's demeanor, as he asked in a soft-hearted manner, "How do you feel?"

"It's none of your concern!"

Even though America was unable to see Russia's body language, he could still tell that his former enemy seemed to already be losing some of his patience just from listening to his tone. Although, the lack of malice surprised America a bit, "It might be best if you drop the attitude. You will being staying here for a while."

America became more irate upon hearing this response. Based on what he had just heard, America immediately assumed that Russia was either trying to pull his leg, or planned on doing something terrible to him. As he continued to recall the memories of recent events, along with the pangs of rejection and loneliness that began to develop within his chest, which he forced himself to ignore at that moment, came the realization that the one who had comforted him when he started sobbing, and fed him when he was incapable of even lifting a finger was Russia. At first, America was extremely confused by this, but eventually the confusion was replaced with mistrust and even more rage, as he thought that Russia was possibly trying to make him feel comfortable in his presence so that when he let his guard down, he would be able to conquer him and do as he pleased to him. Even if he didn't have a terrible history with the northern nation, he would still have a feeling that Russia would not be too pleased with his sudden neediness, and start giving him a hard time for everything he'd done wrong in the past few day (America almost always had something new to blame himself for every hour).

Perhaps America would be completely okay with this, if it meant that Russia was going to kill him off quickly. Although, he clearly thought that his former enemy was completely insane, and would only want to keep him around so that he had something to play with (meaning torture). As much as America thought he deserved all of the pain the world could possibly throw at him, he still couldn't stand the idea of staying at Russia's house and experiencing such trauma. America could always fight him off, but Russia would probably do something to make him defenseless so that he could take advantage of him. Therefore, America decided to oppose this living nightmare, whether or not Russia's intention was truly cruel, "Who says? You can't make me stay here!"

Russia sighed at this response. He knew that America would at least be a bit grumpy with the fact that he was currently under Russia's care, but he certainly wasn't expecting him to be so waspish. Although, it didn't necessarily come to him as too much of a surprise either. The fact that America was most definitely able to figure out that he had been completely dependent on Russia the last time he was awake must have taken a toll on his ego. There wasn't even a single hint to make it seem as if he was relieved with the fact that Russia had pretty much just saved his life. After all, if he had left him in the snow to freeze, he would've stayed there, unconscious for the rest of his life. Until he was finally forgotten, and vanished from existence. Sure, near the end of spring he would finally thaw out, but there would be so much damage done to his body and to his people at that point, he would remain in a coma for at least a year. Maybe even a decade. Russia wasn't exactly sure how long, but it wouldn't matter anyways. His citizens would die off by the masses, and it would've taken a miracle to keep him alive.

Even if Russia was a bit frustrated with the fact that America didn't appear to be grateful for the fact that his life was just save, he eventually decided to put it off as the young nation being too stubborn to give up on any pride he had left, and answered his objection, "I told your boss what happened. He said you will stay here until I say you are better."

"Yeah right, there's no way my boss actually agreed to that."

"You can ask him," America heard something being set down on the nightstand, "Your phone is right here."

Before America could respond, he added, "It still works."

America's azure orbs widened, and it looked as if he was ready to kill someone. There were just too many things going wrong for him at that moment. He was already having a hard time preventing himself from becoming a screeching mess of frustration when he finished processing the fact that Russia saved him and was apparently allowed to take care of him until he was well. Now that he thought that Russia had been looking through his phone and invading his privacy (he had just become aware of the fact that he was in new close, and he knew the only possible reason why, so that definitely wasn't helping his sudden lose of control), he wanted to hold a gun to his own head, and tell Russia he was going to kill himself right in front of him as a punishment for taking away his control. America knew that this sounded crazy. Some people would probably think that he needed to be thrown in a padded room for even thinking such a thing, but on the second thought, Russia would probably want to see that happen. There was no way that he actually wanted America to live, right?

While his skin started to prickle, as if it was too ashamed of him to even want to be a part of his manifestation, America snatched his phone, and held it protectively against his chest as he snapped, "What the hell's wrong with you!?"

Confusion could clearly be seen in Russia's expression, "What?"

"Why did you look through my phone!? Are you trying to humiliate me or something!? I might as well be naked right now!"

This response made Russia cringe a bit. Not that he believed that America had a cringe worthy personality; it was the last comment that was just beyond strange. Anyone he knew who was normal in the slightest wouldn't have said such an aberrant thing. The fear and rage that was present upon America's face definitely wasn't helping. All that Russia could conclude from this was that America had some sort of control problem, and it was making him paranoid in such way that the grey haired nation didn't even know was possible. Perhaps America never really did trust him in the past, but this extreme mistrust was out of character for him. There was no doubt about it, Russia was really starting to worry about this nation's mental health.

After thinking about a way to respond to America's resentment, Russia tried to soothe the tensions, "I didn't look through phone, Amerika. I do not care about what you do on it. If I wanted to humiliate you, I would have search through everything on it, and told you what I saw. Maybe even share it with rest of world. Just calm down, Amerika. You're making yourself upset over nothing."

Instead of cooperating, America only continued to glare at the one who accidentally provoked him. Russia sighed at this, and eventually decided to head out of the room, since talking with the young nation wasn't solving anything at that moment. Once he was at the door, he turned to face America and told him, "I will make breakfast now."

America was still angry, even after Russia had left the room. Though, there was one thing about his situation that brought him a tiny bit of relief. He'd paid for his hotel room ahead of time, so he didn't have to worry about checking out. Even if he still did have the key to his hotel room, but he believed that they could just deal with it, because he's not coming back. What he'd left behind in the hotel room was replaceable anyways, and there was nothing there to give away his identity. However, this still wasn't enough to significantly elate his mood.

What America thought he needed to do was escape from Russia's house. He didn't care about whether his boss wanted him to stay there or not. If his boss did agree to that, he could deal with the fact that he wasn't going to listen. This time, when he would wonder out in the snow, he would make sure that he was deep into the woods, far from any signs of civilization, before collapsing into the snow to be forgotten. Perhaps if he was lucky enough, he'd be able to fall through a lake and drown in some gelid water. Sure, he'd be in a lot of agony for a minute or two, but compared to the suffering he had to deal with for being a nation, and just being him, he thought it was worth it.

Of course, this would definitely make the effort that Russia probably put into rescuing him from the cold pointless. For a moment, he actually felt guilty about the idea of leaving to try and kill himself off once more. After all, Russia did save his life, so obviously he wanted him to stay alive for for one reason or another. However, the guilt was quickly replaced with that of vexation when a venomous thought came to him, Obviously he doesn't care for my well being. No one does! He probably just wants something from me, or will try to punish me for wasting food and just being a burden to everyone. I deserve it, but wouldn't everyone be better off if I die? Why couldn't he just let me die!?

America forced himself to hold back tears. He needed to focus on sneaking out of the house before Russia came back to the room to give him breakfast. With his phone in one hand (perhaps he could break it, so that he'd have a small bit a dignity left when he died, and so that no one tried to track him while he was still alive) and his glasses now upon his face, he slid out of the bed and began to head out of the room as quickly and quietly as he could with his weak legs. By the time he was at the door, a sudden dizzy spell struck him, so he tried to use the wall for support to keep himself from collapsing. After standing for what seemed to be half of a minute, America was eventually well enough to continue moving. Although, he was still somewhat fatigued.

At last, America had finally managed to make it to the top of the stairs. However, just walking down the hallway was enough to make his vision go completely dark. A static noise seemed to be the only thing his ears could focus on at that moment, and he knew it wasn't coming from any source other than his mind. America relied on his memory in order to navigate down the stairs, gripping one of the railings in case he fell. His limbs were starting to feel extremely light. Which made America feel almost as if he was floating, but not in a pleasant way. Eventually, what seemed to be an uncomfortable amount of pressure in the back of his neck and head caused his legs to give out, as if it was a sign that his body finally realized that he was out of energy. This caused America to stumble down what felt to be a few steps before ending up on the floor.

With what strength he had left, America tried to stand up once more, but found that he was hardly able to twitch a finger. All of his motivation was quickly diminished when he realized how tired he was. He just wanted to lie there on the floor and sleep for an eternity, but for whatever reason, he was unable to do so. He must have made a lot of noise, for he was able to hear footsteps approaching (which were muffled by the static). Soon enough, he was being carried in strong arms. The chills he had from leaving his bed for too long immediately vanished, for the person carrying him (he still remembered that he was in Russia's house, so it must have been Russia) was very warm. Soon enough, America realized that Russia must have been saying something to him, but since he was unable to decipher the words, all he could do in response was give him a slurred, "What?"

As soon as he received that response, Russia decided to save his scolding for later, since America appeared to be too out of it to understand what he was saying. Even if he was speaking in simple English. Therefore, he settled for gently tucking America into the guest room's bed, and giving him a glass of water. As soon as America was well enough to sit up on his own, and drink the glass of water, Russia told him in a soft, yet firm tone, "Don't try leaving bed again. You are too weak."

Before Russia left the room to resume to making breakfast, he was given a glare of frustration. He only returned to check on America when he was finished making some breakfast, so that he could set a plate of food down on the night stand. However, the young nation only continued to glare at him, giving the food no acknowledgement whatsoever. Russia became even more agitated with America's stubbornness, but tried to keep his voice calm as he stated, "You should eat now."

America didn't necessarily want to make Russia irritated, but he knew that acting obdurate was the best way to keep his former enemy from discovering his internal struggle. He figured that even Russia didn't deserve to have to worry about him. People as 'worthless' and 'disgusting' as him simply didn't deserve to be comforted. Which was one of the reasons why he was angry with himself about the last time he was awake. He was going to have to make up for his 'wrong doing' by completely pushing Russia away, who America for a split second believed actually cared about him, for whatever reason. Perhaps it was just America's 'selfishness' trying to convince him that someone would actually care, but he was able to snap out of it and resume to believing that no one wanted him. He really did hate himself for sometimes believing that he was worthy of any love.

After a moment of thought, America came up with the perfect solution to really give Russia a headache. He didn't fully understand why he was actually going to go through with this childish plot of his. Wasn't it just a day or two ago when he was trying to gain respect from others? Then again, it seemed to make a lot of sense to him. He'd completely given up. Sure, he believed that everyone hated him, but it was obvious that they still wanted to keep him around. What America thought he needed to do was give everyone a reason to ignore their own conscience so that they would actually let him die. Therefore, he went along with his plan and shoved the plate of food off of the nightstand and onto the floor. He didn't believe that he deserved to eat anyways, so perhaps more good was coming out of this than he initially thought. Although, he did feel extremely ashamed of himself for what he just did, but he decided to laugh to cover up his emotions.

Of course, Russia was not at all impressed with America's childish (no, that was even an immature response for a four year old) behavior. His voice was icy as he told America, "Fine. You can starve until lunch."

"I don't care. I wasn't hungry anyways," was America's arrogant response, "it's too bad I'm not able to clean that up. I wouldn't do it if I could anyways."

"If you were trying to be clever. You did horrible."

As soon as that was said, Russia left the room, only to return with the supplies necessary to clean up the mess. At least there was no broken glass on the floor, since the carpet in that room was so thick and soft, the plate was spared of breaking. Another thing Russia found himself thankful for was the fact that the carpet also happened to be dark in color, so that if there ended up being a stain, it wouldn't be noticeable. That still didn't stop him from being furious with America at that moment. Meanwhile, America continued to taunt Russia, "Maybe if you didn't look through my phone, this wouldn't have happened."

"Your attempt at revenge is still pathetic," Russia retorted, "even you can do better than that."

"I still got on your nerves, so I think I won."

Russia glanced at the irritating smile upon America's face. He would've wanted to punch him right in the nose, maybe even break his glasses, if it wasn't for the fact that he loved him too much to even think of doing something so terrible. Instead, he settled for slamming the door when he left the room, which caused America to flinch.

More guilt was beginning to eat away at America. There was nothing Russia did to deserve that, but it had to be done, right? Even if it was how he planned on pushing the one person away who was so insistent on keeping him alive at that moment, he still felt ridiculous and disgusting. He did just waste food trying to not waste it on himself, but he still thought that was better than having him be full and happy. America rested his head on his pillow, trying his best to ignore his hunger. He would've tried to go back to sleep, if it wasn't for the fact that his mind was a storm of negative emotions. Something that really disturbed him was the fact that Russia seemed to be tolerating his stubbornness. He hardly even insulted him. Really, he was expecting Russia to do something beyond terrible. In a way, this sort of relieved him while at the same time, he hated it. America shifted so that he was facing the wall as he told himself, "Maybe if I keep this up, he'll eventually let me die."


	5. Chapter 5

Taking care of America turned out to be much more challenging than Russia thought. Even after the breakfast incident, the young nation always managed to find a way to surprise him with his stubbornness. Every half hour he would check on America and make sure that he had fresh water available to him in case he was thirsty. Perhaps America didn't necessarily need a full glass of water every half hour, since he would only drink scarcely, but Russia wanted to make sure that the poor nation wouldn't dehydrate. To him, it almost felt as if he was being punished for caring about America's well being, for whenever he entered the room, America would always jeer at him. Some comments were be about his appearance and weight. Others were about how pathetic and cruel he was compared to the 'hero'. At first, Russia was able to brush the insults off, but over time, they actually began to hurt. No matter how much he would deny it, Russia knew that if America kept this up, he would find himself poking at his stomach, pushing down on his nose in a futile attempt to shrink it to a normal size, and guilt tripping himself for not being able to make any friends. He already was extremely self conscious about those three things, he really didn't need to be harassed.

Even if America was starting to test his patience, Russia still couldn't help but become more worried about him. Whenever he wasn't around, America would never utter a single word. Russia knew that his former enemy was the type who loved to talk, and if he wasn't having conversation on his phone, he would probably have one with himself for the sake of hearing his own voice. Of course, the other nations might have appreciated the fact that America was being silent for once, which made Russia feel as if he was the only one who appreciated America's voice. One reason why he loved it was because he hated silence, and the young nation usually had enough volume in his voice to be heard throughout an entire building. The other reason was the fact that he always had much confidence and enthusiasm when he spoke (except, the enthusiasm would be replaced with annoyance when he spoke to Russia). The lack of uncertainty in America's voice was enough to make Russia realize that he was not afraid of him, which he loved.

Another thing that Russia found captivating about the young nation, that seemed to be non existent at the moment, was his appetite. This was one thing that most nations absolutely hated about America. Russia couldn't stand to see someone starve. He knew that famine was not a pleasant thing to witness or be a victim of. It was a part of being a nation to experience it at one point or another. That was why Russia would always grow confused when other nations would start to give America a hard time when ever they saw him eat. They thought he was taking the food for granted, but it always seemed as if he enjoyed eating. Shouldn't enjoying one's meal actually be considered grateful?

With America's usual love towards food in mind, more worry had built up within Russia when the American refused to eat lunch; as he claimed that the food would make him fat, since some 'chubby' Russian made it (as if America had the right to talk about someone's food being nothing but lard). Though, Russia was able to see past that silly insult and notice the glint of reluctance America was trying to hide. He hardly even needed three seconds to figure out what might have been causing the disinclination towards food. America must have started to believe the other nation's harsh words. Sure, Russia believed that they were beginning to take it a bit far, but he still thought that his former enemy was better than that. Even with his own insecurities about his weight, he would still not reject food just because someone thought he was fat, or in America's case; unappreciative. America was a powerful nation, he shouldn't of even cared about what others thought of him. That still didn't stop Russia from having an urge to threaten the next person who decided to hurt his precious sunflower.

It was the evening now and the sun had already retired, to be replaced with a night sky that would seemingly last for an entire day. Once more, Russia decided to check on the ornery nation. Even if he was becoming reluctant to do so, his curiosity for America's well being would always make him do it in the end. When he entered the room America was staying in, a twinge of sympathy began to lurk within him when he noticed that the young nation was curled up with a look of discomfort on his face. Whether he was holding his stomach or not, Russia couldn't tell since most of him was covered up in a blanket, but he did look rather pale. Russia decided to approach him so that he could stroke his hair and ask, "What's wrong?"

Even if America felt too queasy to slap Russia's hand away, he still managed to keep his voice from wavering as he snapped, "Go drown in a lake!"

Russia sighed at this, "Why do you insist on being so harsh? I'm only trying to help you."

"Do you think I'm stupid? Why would I ever trust a psychopath like you!?"

The remark stung, but Russia ignored the pain as he explained with a calm tone, "If it was my intention to harm you, I would have done something while you were unconscious. Now tell me what's wrong."

"I'm fine!"

There was a moment of silence before Russia finally asked, "You feel sick, don't you?"

"Why does it matter!?"

"You are probably very hungry, and that is why you feel sick. I will go make something light for you. In case you throw up, I will go get bucket."

The irritation at having his last couple of comments go ignored caused America to bristle. Every time he tried to push Russia away, it seemed as if the older nation would become more determined to try and take care of him. He was actually starting to feel as if he was a just some child. Russia was sort of treating him like one. Then again, he probably deserved it for being so childish about the situation. America decided that he would keep up with his stubborn act anyways, for he figured that Russia's patience would have to run out eventually.

Before Russia returned to the room America was staying in with a bowl of soup, he'd only returned once to place a bucket next to the bed. This time, Russia upheld a flinty expression as he told America, "This time, you are going to eat."

"No," America retorted, "you probably put something in that food."

"Amerika," Russia started, a hint of annoyance making it obvious that he thought the young nation was being ridiculous, "there's no need to be mistrusting. Besides, if you actually think about this, you would be more likely to fight me off if I tried something if you just ate. Chances are, I did not do anything to your food."

America knew that Russia had a point, and he knew that the older nation wouldn't have done anything to his food. Even if he didn't trust Russia at all in the beginning, he was eventually able to figure out that his former enemy wouldn't have gone through the trouble of saving him if he was only going to put him close to death again. It was becoming much more difficult for America to keep up his stubborn act. Especially since he was still feeling some hunger pangs despite his queasiness, and the aroma coming from the food was starting to tempt him. With his remaining discipline, America still pretended to be ignorant, which was an act he believed would be easy for Russia to fall for, since most people thought he was an idiot anyways, "No, it's the other way around. At least I'll still have a little bit-"

No longer believing that trying to reason with America was going to work, Russia shoved a spoonful of soup into the American's mouth. He didn't necessarily shove it far enough to the point where it was practically down his throat, since America wasn't choking or gagging, but it was enough to make him pause with shock and instinctively swallow the spoonful of soup. Once the spoon left his mouth, America rebuked, "Hey! You can't just do that to someone!"

"Your mouth was open, so I thought you were ready to eat," Russia explained with a shrug, noticing that America appeared to be more tempted to eat than he was before he accidentally ate a spoonful of soup, "also, I don't think you are one who can criticize others for lacking manners."

"I still have enough common decency to know-"

Yet another spoonful of soup was shoved into America's mouth. At first, America let it linger, trying his best to resist swallowing the food, but it was to no avail, for his hunger was becoming unbearable. After eating his second spoonful of soup, America gave Russia a glare so venomous, it was surprising that it hadn't stabbed through his flesh, "Would you stop doing that!?"

Russia couldn't help but smile at the flustered American. As cruel as it may have seemed, he found America to be plain adorable when he was all worked up. Believing that his beloved would longer be able to resist his food, and that he had already annoyed the poor nation enough that day, Russia stated before leaving the room, "Then eat your food, and maybe I will stop bothering you."

America gave Russia a scowl as he left the room. After about a few minutes of trying to resist the delicious soup, America finally gave into temptation. When he was finished, guilt began to prickle within his now full stomach; hating Russia for finding a way to make him eat. Of course, he always had the option of throwing the food up in order to rid himself of the full feeling, but he didn't have the guts to do that. Instead, he settled lying down on the bed in an attempt to fall asleep. Which was quite an easy task, since the feeling of being full was enough to make him drift off to sleep in a matter of minutes. Despite the troubling thoughts that continued to haunt his mind.

Approximately one hour had passed since Russia gave America his dinner, and he decided to check on his guest to see if he'd eaten his soup. At first, Russia was relieved to find that the bowl was empty, but when he turned his gaze to America, he couldn't help but frown when he noticed the look of discomfort upon the young nation's face. Sometimes, he would even twitch. One thing was for sure; America was having a nightmare. Russia decided to kneel down on the floor next to the bed that America was sleeping on so that he could start rubbing soothing patterns on America's upper back area. Perhaps it wouldn't do much, but at least there was a possibility that it would reassure America in his dream.

This continued on for a long while. Whenever America whimpered (whether it was from fear, shame, or a mix of both, Russia had no idea) he would mutter a soft phrase of reassurance to the sleeping nation. A few tears had escaped from his eyes, but Russia would always be ready to wipe them away. Eventually, the trembling died down, and America's expression turned to one that showed no worries. Russia leaned over to plant a soft kiss on America's temple, as if he believed that would keep the rest of the nightmares at bay, before taking the empty bowl, and leaving the room.

Obviously, he knew there was something wrong with America, but the more time he spent with his former enemy, the more complicated things seemed to become. He was definitely going to have to do some investigating.


	6. Chapter 6

Unfortunately for Russia, America had managed to find a way to refuse almost any and all of the food that was offered to him. Well, except for the occasions when he would take a few bites from a meal (there was one time he'd managed to eat half of the food that was offered to him) when Russia wasn't around, but he would always resume to silently staring at a wall right after. Even when Russia thought he'd found a way to make America eat, the young nation hadn't uttered a word in his presence when there was food around, as if he was worried that if he started to talk, he would be forced to eat. Of course, the fact that America had figured out his trick was going to make things go downhill with the young nation's condition, but Russia still couldn't help but be somewhat impressed by the American's solution. Even if he didn't think that it required half of a brain to figure out his trick, he still found it interesting that America could be gullible at one moment and become almost impossible to fool in the next.

Perhaps America was able to figure out a way to resist almost all of the food that was offered to him, but that still didn't mean he was being one hundred percent wise about his situation. Since he was practically not eating anything, his energy was draining. On the few occasions that Russia would allow America to try and prove that he was able to walk, he would end up having a fainting spell when he'd only walked about a couple of yards at a careful, slow pace. Of course, Russia would always be around to catch him, so that he didn't hurt himself while collapsing. It would take America a few seconds to regain consciousness after these fainting spells, and when he did, he would always protest, despite his feeble state, when Russia helped him perform the simple tasks he wanted to do after attempting to prove that he could walk.

It was late in the evening after America practically starved himself for nearly four days when Russia decided to finally confront him. Really, he should've done this on the second day that America refused to eat anything, but he'd still held onto the false hope that the young nation would eventually remember his love for food, and start eating again. Despite his hope, however, worry was beginning to make it difficult for Russia to sleep. Of course, he would never openly admit that he was fretting over America, due to his silly need to prove that he was strong (or perhaps it wasn't so silly).

Russia wore a firm expression as he gazed at the listless nation. America turned his attention towards Russia after a few moments of wishing him away before finally asking with a groan, "What do you want now, Russia?"

"I know something is not right," Russia began, giving America a glare that clearly showed there was no way he could escape from his confrontation without a valid explanation, "You have starved yourself for four days."

As intimidating as he found Russia's glare to be at that moment, America decided to mask his sudden bout of fear with what he hoped was an unyielding response, "Who cares about whether I eat or not? I'm an independent nation, so I can do whatever I want. And you can't do anything about it. Not even if you conquer me."

Russia had the urge to roll his eyes at America's arrogant response, but instead, he continued to challenge him, "Amerika, this isn't healthy, and you know it. Not only are you hurting yourself right now, but you are also hurting millions of people by starving. You are going to stop this right now."

America turned away from Russia, a feeling of dread beginning to weigh down his stomach. The uneasiness towards what his current caretaker might do was enough to make his throat close off, as if he was being strangled. Therefore, making it impossible for him to respond. Besides, he still felt extremely guilty about what he was doing, even though he believed that if he kept this up, his citizens would have a better representative. He flinched when he felt Russia set a gentle hand on his shoulder, but was too caught up with his own worry at the idea of being forcefully fed to do anything about it, "Your boss is very worried about you. He doesn't want you to starve any longer."

America whipped his head around so that he could give Russia a fierce glare. Although, the foreboding within the depths of his azure orbs could've been detected by anyone, so Russia knew that the young nation was becoming desperate for a way out of the situation. Russia began to stroke America's hair in an attempt to soothe him; his gaze softened as he explained, "Starving yourself is not a choice. Especially if you are a nation. You should know that. It isn't hard. All you have to do is eat, and everything will be fine."

Immediately after that was said, America retreated from Russia's touch. Humiliation at the thought of what might happen if he wasn't able to find a way out of his situation adding to his fear. Russia, on the other hand, couldn't help but frown at this. He hated seeing the young nation in such distress, and he wanted to stop pressuring him, but he knew that being firm was the only way to handle the current situation. Of course, he still hoped that it seemed as if he was making America feel like he had some control over what was happening as he continued, "I will give you a choice. You can either start eating, tell me why you are not eating, or I can take you to the hospital. And I won't regret it if they end up force feeding you."

In all reality, there were only two choices for America. He knew that if he told Russia the reason why he wasn't eating, the older nation would either take him to the hospital, or find a way to make him eat. Of course, the wise thing to do would be to simply start eating, so that he would be well enough to eventually not have to be with Russia. Really, if America didn't have the incentive of preventing himself from having his internal conflict being discovered, he would have probably voluntarily eaten by the time his hunger was unbearable. Unfortunately, his act seemed to be backfire, for now Russia seemed to have figured out that there was something terribly wrong with America. Soon enough, the young nation noticed his mistake. He was known for eating inhumane amounts of food on a daily basis, and even if he was trying to stubbornly refuse food from an enemy, everyone would've assumed that he was stupid enough to eventually start scarfing down all of the food that was offered to him when he became agonizingly hungry. However, America didn't think he'd be able to do that, since over time, he'd lost his appetite, and before he had to stay with Russia, he was only consuming three slightly smaller than average meals a day. It was enough to ensure that he was healthy, but he still felt somewhat exhausted from the reduced amount of calories.

Russia had his arms crossed, his demeanor was beginning to radiate with impatience as he demanded, "Choose, Amerika, or I will bring you to the hospital. Whether this is a mental or physical problem, it needs to be fixed right now."

Then, a sudden bout of rage fought his petrifying paranoia off; causing his body to tremble as he snapped, "I'm not going to let you force feed me!"

Russia sighed at this response. America really wasn't going to make this easy for him, was he? When he spoke, he made sure to keep the annoyance out of his voice, since he didn't want to encourage his anger, "This doesn't have to be difficult. If you have a health problem that's making lose your appetite, I can get you medical attention. If there's something bothering you that's repelling you from eating, we can talk about it. But I'm not going to let you hurt yourself. Besides, this is making your condition worse. You would have probably been better in a few days if you didn't do this."

Of course, Russia was aware of the fact that it wasn't too probable that there was something wrong with America physically, but it wouldn't hurt to make sure. Judging by America's body language though, he could only become more convinced that something really seemed to be bothering the young nation to an unhealthy extent. Even the way he spoke seemed to express that, "Why do you care anyways?"

For a moment, Russia grew silent, trying to think of a way to explain himself. Of course he wasn't going to admit that he was in love with America. For one, it was not appropriate to talk about such things during such a situation. Secondly, Russia simply didn't have the courage to admit his feelings, and believed that it was best kept a secret anyways, since he knew such information could be used against him. Sometimes, he wondered why he even had these feelings in the first place. He knew that there was almost no chance in the world that they would ever be returned. Really, he just felt ridiculous for even having them. After coming up with a way to hide his 'fatuous' feelings, he answered, "I happen to care enough for your well being to not let you starve. Now, are you going to start taking care of yourself, or do I have to take care of you myself?"

America gave him a challenging glare, as if saying that if Russia tried to do anything, the young nation would always have his way in the end. Dread began to prickle within the Russian. He really didn't want to go to an extreme extent just to make America eat again, but it didn't seem as if the situation was going to play out the way he wanted it to. Despite all that, he was still more than willing to give America one last chance, "It would be best for you to start cooperating. I will even bring you to stupid burger place, if it will make you eat."

Unfortunately, telling America this did Russia no good, as the type of response he received was the one he happened to dread the most, "No!"

"You're going to the hospital then," there was a pause, as Russia watched slight horror creep onto America's expression, a sign that the information was slowly sinking in. A sigh of desperation escaped from Russia upon seeing the young nation's reaction. He hoped that tone was firm and held no emotions whatsoever as he told the young nation, "I'm sorry Amerika, but you leave me no choice."

With what energy he had left, America began to back away from Russia as quickly as he could on the bed. Unfortunately for him, since Russia was not the one who was deprived of food and wasn't ailing, he was able to wrapped one arm around America's torso before the frantic nation even managed to move one inch. As soon as he was touched, America retaliated by punching Russia in the chest. Despite his weak state, a great amount of pain shot throughout Russia's chest, but of course, it wasn't enough to make him do as much as wince, since he was still a powerful nation himself, and was possibly one of the only countries that could stand a chance against America's unnatural amount of strength.

Before America could throw anymore hits, Russia wrapped the arm that was currently holding his torso so that it pinned the young nation's arms in a way that would force them together on his chest. Then he grabbed America's legs with his other arm and made sure that those were immobile before carrying the now struggling nation out of the room.

It wasn't as if he necessarily planned on bringing America to the hospital. Really, this entire act was only to scare the behavior out of the young nation so that he would eat again. Even if Russia had to drive him all the way to the hospital before the young nation suddenly changed his mind about not eating, he would. Of course, America was probably not aware of it, but he still had many chances to prevent himself from having to go to the hospital, but that was the part that worried Russia the most. What if there was a chance that America would become too afraid to speak up and promise to eat on the way there? It was much more probable, however, that he wouldn't make the promise for the sake of being stubborn, and ultimately, end up screwing himself over. Not that that thought was any better, in fact, it made Russia even more worried about the situation. He really didn't want to go through with admitting America to the hospital, but he knew he would have to if America didn't speak up soon, or else the young nation would only continue to starve.

As soon as Russia arrived at the front door, he set America down so that he was now standing by his side in one of his arms, and grabbed a spare jacket that was much warmer than America's bomber jacket. Then, he began to force America's arms through the sleeves. Due to America's constant struggling, the task was completed in a matter of minutes, instead of just seconds. By the time the jacket was zipped, tears were falling down America's cheeks. Russia could see that all of the anger had now vanished, only to be replaced with desperation as the young nation begged with a sob, "Please. Stop!"

Russia ignored America's command, as he continued to dress him up for the cold weather. Eventually, America snapped under the pressure of his desperation. With his hands that were now free, since Russia was unable to put the winter gear on America with only one hand, he wrapped his arms around his current caretaker in the most pleading way possible, and whimpered into his chest, "Fine, I'll eat! Just don't take me to the hospital!"

Russia's touch was now gentle, as he began to hold the young nation protectively with one of his arms, using his free hand to stroke America's soft, wheat colored hair. As soothing as Russia's touch was, America still sobbed for what seemed to be an entire half hour (it was really only for ten minutes). The comfort still cut his sobbing short though, despite the fact that it came from the same person who'd just frightened him. Which was something that he really loathed at that moment. Well, would've loathed, if it wasn't for the fact that he was too tired to even be embarrassed about the fact that he'd just appeared extremely vulnerable in front of Russia. All he cared for at that moment was the fact that the person holding him was warm and gentle, and it was easy for him to let himself enjoy it in his worn out state.

While America continued to lean against him, Russia began to remove what winter gear he'd put on America. By the time that task was completed, he was about to lead America to the nearest couch in the living room, but he was stopped immediately as he felt something way down the arm that was wrapped around the young nation to help support him, and grab onto his shirt. He looked over to his side to find America struggling to stay standing, using Russia for support. Since he looked to be on the verge of having yet another fainting spell (Russia figured it must have been due to a lack of energy from struggling and crying so much), Russia decided to scoop him up into his arms, and carry him all the way to the couch. After he'd laid America down in a comfortable position with a pillow under his head, Russia left in order to go to the room America was staying in for a moment to return with the thickest blanket that was on his bed. Then, he wrapped the cover around America's still form.

After wrapping America up to ensure that no chills would be able to disturb him, Russia told America in a soft voice, "Just try to rest. I will go make something light for dinner. I know it has only been four day since you've had a decent sized meal and that nations can last longer than humans without food, but I don't want to risk upsetting your stomach."

As soon as Russia left, America removed his glasses and set them down a nearby table before closing his eyes in an attempt to fall asleep. He knew that he would've wanted to escape if he had more energy, but all he could think about in his tired state was how gentle Russia was towards him when he started to cooperate, and how he didn't laugh or tease him when he started to cry. Confusion prickled within the pits of his stomach. Surely he didn't deserve such a warm embrace and a comforting touch after all he did. Russia had even let him cry into his shirt, which was something that would've surely made anyone else try to push him away with obvious disgust. Slight guilt started to overwhelm him as he felt tears prickle in his closed eyes. Even if he was extremely tired at that moment, guilt always seemed to be something that could be felt at any time during any situation for him. Sometimes, it seemed as if it was the only emotion he knew.

Meanwhile, as Russia waited for some water to boil, he glimpsed at America from where he was standing in the kitchen, and noticed that he appeared to be asleep, or at least, it looked that way. The only reason he'd set America down on the couch instead of bringing him all the way back to the guest's room was so he could keep an eye on him. Sure, America was extremely weak at the moment, and would be unable to escape, but he wanted to make sure that the young nation wouldn't end up hurting himself during an attempt to do so. After all, he figured that the urge to escape from him must have increased, since America would surely feel ashamed of himself for being so 'weak' and letting Russia pull that move. He really wished that he'd known a better way of going about this.

By the time he'd finished making yet another soup, Russia entered the living room with a bowl of the said food, and gently shook America's shoulder in order to wake him. America slowly opened his eyes as if he had been awoken from a deep slumber, but in all reality, he'd only just began to doze off. America slowly began to sit up, so that he would be able to take the soup and start eating. It seemed as if America would spend half of a minute on each spoonful just to chew up the vegetables. Of course, Russia wouldn't rush him, since he was at least eating. He figured that America must have been too exhausted to eat at a normal pace anyways.

Suddenly, when America was about three fourths of the way done with eating his soup, he began to gag. Russia immediately walked over and rubbed his back as he told the young nation, "It's okay. You don't have to eat anymore of the soup."

Relief washed over America as he began to slump down into a laying position after the remaining soup was taken from him. Although, he did feel quite queasy, he tried to ignore the discomfort. That was, until he felt a faint cramp in his stomach after a long while of laying still, which was when he decided to alert Russia about his discomfort, "I feel like I'm going to throw up."

Immediately, after this was said, Russia almost ran in order to grab a bucket and placed it on the floor next to the couch America was laying on. After a few moments of observing the young nation's shallow, quick breaths, Russia advised, "Look up and take deep breaths. It's the best way to keep it down."

America complied, trying his best to ignore the queasiness and slow his breathing. At first, it seemed to be working, until another surge of nausea struck him, causing him to say in a shaky voice, "I can't hold it back."

"I'm not going to make you hold it back if you can't," Russia explained, still sounding sympathetic, even though it seemed as if he thought that what he was saying should've been obvious, "There's a bucket right here."

As soon as America leaned over to the edge of the couch, so that his head was right over the bucket, Russia pushed some of the young nation's hair back so that it was out of his face. Not that it was very likely that his hair would be messy with vomit if he didn't, since it was so short. He was doing so more for the sake of being comforting. America remained sitting this way for a while before he began to violently gag. After the gagging fits subsided, the only thing that managed to escape from his mouth was a string of drool. America knew it must have seemed disgusting, but he couldn't help the fact that he was unable to keep his mouth closed while he was gagging.

When America realized that nothing would come up, he decided to lay down once more. Russia adjusted the blanket so that it was more snug around America's form before saying, "Just try to relax now, okay?"

America nodded his head in order to express his obedience before Russia left him alone. For what seemed to be an hour, America lay there with his eyes closed. When the queasiness subsided, he was finally able to fall asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

After having to threaten America with admittance to the hospital, Russia found himself thinking about what could've possibly been making the young nation starve himself. Sure, he'd managed to find a solution to the problem, but he still thought that it was important to know the reason why. After all, he was not too fond of how bothered America seemed to be, and he was certainly beginning to notice his strange behavior. Of course, he knew that America was acting strangely quiet during the meeting, but his conclusion of that being caused by some sort of ailment he managed to hide from the rest of the nations was quickly being disproven. Sure, America was a strong nation, and there was no doubt that he was an amazing actor, but he realized that there could've been no way he was experiencing a high fever. There had been a few moments when he was close enough to be able to observe any of the signs, and he noticed that America wasn't sweating or shivering. Nor did he seem to be out of it. Lastly, he seemed to have no problems with walking. In fact, it only seemed as if he was just slightly exhausted.

Since that theory was completely out of the question, Russia's mind began to wonder towards a, what he would now consider a piece of evidence, that he'd completely disregarded when he first started taking care of America. The long scars that started from his wrist, and went all the way down to his elbows. It was beginning to make no sense that they could've come from any wars or traumatic events. Battle scars were often found on the chest, abdomen, and back area. Occasionally they could appear on limbs as well, but they were usually very small when that happened. Scars from traumatic events would have a unique look to them, and would only be found around where the heart was and on the neck. Never could such large scars from battle or trauma be found inside of the forearm. There was only one way such scars could ever appear in that area. They had to have been self inflicted, and by the looks of it, it didn't seem as if America was cutting into himself for the sake of experiencing pain. He was trying to kill himself.

As soon as that conclusion was drawn, a storm of negative emotions struck Russia. At first, he was extremely angry at America for even thinking about doing such a thing to himself. Didn't the nation even realize how many individuals truly cared for him? Of course, he wasn't angry to the point of wanting to hit the poor nation for attempting suicide, but that still didn't stop him from wanting to rant to America about how he shouldn't have tried to do something so drastic. Not for the sake of guilt tripping him, but because he felt the need to scare that out of America. Just as he scared him into eating.

Fortunately, the intense anger only lasted for about half of an hour, and Russia never decided to do anything cruel such as wake America from his seemingly peaceful sleep, and yell at him for attempting to kill himself. He knew from a rather, traumatizing experience that being angry would only make America feel worse. In fact, for a while Russia actually felt extremely guilty about being angry with America for being so miserable. How could he possibly blame America for going through something that almost seemed impossible to overcome? Especially since he'd gone through the same thing himself for the majority of his life.

Eventually, Russia forced himself to push the strong emotions he was feeling aside for a moment. He needed to start thinking about how he would help America out, instead of blaming himself for something the young nation would probably never find out. Although, the task wouldn't necessarily prove to be easy. Just because he went through horrible times with depression, didn't necessarily mean that he would know how to cure America of it. For all he knew, there could've been completely different things that would make America upset, and different things that would cheer him up. In the worst case scenario, he might never be able to figure out exactly what helped or what hurt America.

There was one thing for sure though. America needed a friend. He needed someone to be there and listen when he felt that it was necessary to vent. Someone who would be willing to hold him whenever he started to cry, or if he simply wanted to be held. After all, it didn't take Russia too long to finally realize that America must have been feeling extremely lonely. What not with the other nations constantly tearing him apart whenever he did so much as utter a word. Even England, his father figure, seemed to have something against the poor nation. It was all extremely heartbreaking, to say the least. One thing was for sure though. Russia was definitely beginning to find America even more relatable than before. Which only made Russia more determined to help him out.

After figuring out how he was going to attempt to fix America's problem, Russia was beginning to feel a hint of exhaustion. He glanced up at the clock, and couldn't help but be shocked when he found that it was already one thirty-eight at night. Since he was already tired, Russia decided to waste no time making his way to his bed. The fact that he was still extremely upset with how miserable America seemed to be based on the conclusions he drew only caused his energy to drain even more as time passed by. Of course, there was a chance that his interpretation could be completely false, but the more Russia thought about it, the more the evidence began to convince him that he was right.

Russia crawled under the covers of his bed, tears he didn't even know he was holding back finally slid down his face as he curled up in an attempt to be more comfortable. At first, he would only wipe his tears away with his sleeve and try to maintain his breathing in a futile attempt to stop his crying. Before he knew it, however, he ended up sobbing uncontrollably in what seemed to be just a matter of moments. They were possibly some of the ugliest and loudest sobs he'd ever produced, and he was certainly hoping that America was still asleep, or that he wouldn't be able to hear him at all. In case the sound was able to travel all the way to where America was sleeping, Russia decided to shove his face into a pillow in order to muffle the sound.

Even if Russia didn't want America to find out that he was extremely upset, at the same time, he just wanted the young nation to wipe away his tears and tell him that everything was going to be okay, and that he was just worrying himself over nothing. He also wished that if America ever said those words, it wouldn't just be a lie. In fact, he wouldn't even care if those words came with a harsh slap to his face. He'd much rather have things be the way they were before. Even if it meant dealing with a hyperactive and loud American at every world meeting, or the fact that he would never have a chance to become as much as a close friend to America. No matter what, as long as America was happy and healthy, he would be happy too. His precious sunflower's well being was one of the only thing that mattered to him anymore.

After what seemed to be an hour or two of non stop, intense sobbing, exhaustion began to gradually consume what was left of Russia's energy. After spending a few minutes to recover from all of his crying, Russia finally lifted his head from the pillow, and held it close to his chest so that he would at least have something to cuddle with, not caring that it was completely soaked. Despite his weariness, it was rather difficult for the nation to fall asleep, due to the headache and chills that always seemed to be a byproduct of crying for more than five minutes. Fortunately, simply keeping his eyes closed for a long enough time seemed to be enough resolve these problems, and allow the nation to drift off to sleep.

Russia awoke to find that he still had a bit of a headache, and that his eyes also seemed to sting from the remaining exhaustion. Of course, these problems were still quite bearable, so Russia decided to leave the comfort of his bed and start to prepare for the day. As soon as he glanced at the clock, he couldn't help but be shocked to find that it was already two o' five in the afternoon. At first, Russia stared at the clock with disbelief, before deciding to quickly make himself look at least somewhat decent so that he wouldn't keep America waiting any longer. As if his situation couldn't become any worse, he noticed as he looked in the mirror that his eyes were still red from crying. Unfortunately, Russia didn't know how he was going to be able to hide that piece of evidence, but at least he would be able to come up with an excuse as to why his eyes looked the way they did, in case America decided to ask.

After making sure that he was prepared appearance wise for the day, Russia headed down stairs in order to see how America was doing. Of course, he wasn't at all surprised to find that the young nation decided to give him a death stare as soon as he stepped foot into his line of sight. Despite the hostility that seemed to radiate off of the young nation, Russia decided to give him a small smile as he stated, "Sorry about keeping you waiting. I should probably make something for breakfast now, da?"

Those weren't exactly the words Russia wanted to say. Instead, he wanted to find out whether or not his theory for America's odd behavior was true, but of course, Russia would not be able to do that since the young nation was still suffering with an ailment. What America needed was rest, and it was already bad enough that Russia scared him out of starving himself. However, the stress that was inflicted upon America from that event was necessary. The young nation was actually harming himself, which was a problem that needed to stop immediately, and Russia saw no other way of going about fixing it. Stress from an interrogation was completely different though. Since America was still in quite a weak state, he was in no danger of being harmed by what his strong emotions might make him do. Besides, the interrogation would only make his stress much worse, and possibly even cause America to become even more sick. It could wait for until America was better.

At first, America could only feel rancor towards Russia as the grey haired nation started to leave the room. However, that disgust was quickly replaced with slight concern when he realized that Russia's eyes were red. Has he been crying? America tried to ponder for a reason until it finally came to him. Guilt prickled throughout his skin as an uncomfortable heat caused him to start sweating, Oh great, I made him start worrying, didn't I? As if I'm not already flawed enough, now I'm a pathetic attention seeker! I didn't even try to get attention, but it happened anyways. Because I guess just that terrible at controlling my life. I hate myself so much. I wish I was dead.

America continued to mentally scold himself for everything he 'did wrong' in the past week until Russia finally arrived with a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of juice. After handing America the bowl of oatmeal, and setting the juice down on the coffee table, he decided to explain to the young nation, "You only need to eat at least half of the oatmeal."

For a moment, America studied the size of the bowl in order to quickly estimate the exact amount Russia was expecting him to eat. Then groaned with annoyance when he realized he was expected to eat at least one and a half servings of oatmeal. After all, oatmeal was quite filling, and America hardly even had an appetite, but of course, things could've been worse. At least Russia was willing to take the fact that America's stomach still needed to accustom to having a decent amount of food in it into consideration. He might have even figured out that America wasn't eating much before he started taking care of him. In the past few months, America did lose ten pounds. Which was probably enough to make his weight loss noticeable to those who actually spent a minute or two observing his figure. While his clothes were still on of course. It would've probably been quite obvious if more of him was exposed.

As much as he wanted to, America knew much better than to try and defy Russia's commands when it came to eating. Only because of what had happened the day before (he may not have been showing it much, since he sort of felt too defeated to act so feisty anymore, but America was still extremely humiliated by what happened, and if he had even a pinch of pride left after spending six months with his terrible depression, it was definitely gone now). Therefore, America decided to eat half of the portion of food that was served to him as quickly as possible before his stomach started to protest, and cause eating his breakfast to become even more of a chore. At least Russia was willing to sweeten it, so that it wouldn't just taste like a bunch of bland, soggy oats.

By the time America was finished eating, his stomach felt as if it had been replaced by a rock the size of his own fist. He tried to soothe the slight discomfort by downing the glass of juice Russia gave him, but doing so only seemed to make him feel even more bloated. Now hydrated and uncomfortably full, America gave the empty glass and half full bowl of oatmeal to Russia before laying on his stomach in an attempt to make the food digest faster. He wasn't necessarily queasy, or in any pain, so things could've definitely have been worse for him.

The next few days were all the same. America would spend almost every single minute of his day sleeping, or trying to keep himself from being irritated as Russia constantly monitored him. As if being forced to eat three meals when he really didn't want to eat wasn't enough to make him miserable, Russia had told him that he would have to eat some snacks throughout the day, since three small meals wouldn't provide him enough calories. Especially since most of the food he was eating didn't contain very much fat to begin with. A glass of milk with lunch and dinner was also mandatory.

After a few days of this passed by, America was finally well enough to walk around for a short while without even becoming exhausted. As soon as he considered himself well enough, he decided to ask Russia, "Can I leave now? I'm not sick anymore, so I don't need anyone to take care of me."

"No, Amerika," was Russia's response, "I know that there's still something wrong, and I think it's time I acknowledge it."

America furrowed his eyebrows, already beginning to feel irritated, "What are you talking about? I'm not sick anymore, so that means I get to leave. You can't just keep me here forever."

"I don't plan on keeping you here forever, but I've said this before. You do have to stay until I say you are better, and I don't think you are. Your behavior has been very concerning lately."

Russia had only just started interrogating him, but America was already beginning to feel the back of his neck heat up due to his hesitation. He couldn't help but mentally pray for some deity that might be out there to prevent Russia from finding out his horrible secret. It wasn't abnormal for America to feel terrible about asking for something to be in his favor in his current state, but this time, he thought that demanding for things to go his way would end up being a great help for everyone. A hint of denial could be heard in his voice as he objected Russia's argument, "Just stop it, Russia. Everything is fine. There was never even a problem in the first place, but you decided to create some when you forced me to stay here. Now, can I please just leave?"

Russia didn't respond to America's protest. Instead, more concern became evident in his expression as he walked towards America and sat next to him on the couch. Then he held him protectively, as if the young nation was just a young kid who had just been traumatized from witnessing someone being brutally slaughtered. Surprisingly, America didn't fight the affection. In fact, for a few moments, the hug actually relieved him of his nervousness. America would have probably almost forgotten what was going on, due to the fact that Russia also spoke in a voice that was deeper than the usual high pitched (for a male his size, anyways) one. Which could have actually been quite soothing, if it wasn't for the words Russia used, "Fredka? Have you been feeling depressed?"

America gave Russia a glare, "I already told you that everything is fine! Why can't you just drop it!?"

"Well, if there really is nothing wrong, can you tell me where these came from?"

Before America could react, Russia grabbed on of his arms and tugged the sleeve down. As the long scar on the inside of his forearm was revealed, America couldn't help but stare at it in pure horror, since he was still trying to process what was going on. Therefore, he was unable to stop Russia from revealing the scar on his other arm. After taking a moment to realize exactly what was going on, America turned his gaze so that he was now making eye contact with Russia. Amethyst eyes looking expectantly at wide azure ones, scorching into the younger nation's gaze as if they could see right through him, and prove that their owner would know whether what America decided to say would be a lie or not.

Soon enough, America averted his eyes so that he was now staring at the ground; trying to come up with a way to explain himself. He knew that there would be no point in telling him that the scars were obtained from some war, since his shock must have given away the fact that they were never supposed to be revealed. Really, this shouldn't have come to America as such a shock. After all, he knew that there was a chance that Russia might have discovered them anyways while he was unconscious, and he was worried that the older nation would decide to bring them up. He did try to come up with some excuses for if the situation were to ever occur, and yet he knew that none of them would work now. All because he screwed up.

Since it didn't seem as if America was going to answer his question, Russia decided to ask yet another one, hoping that this time, inquiry would at least cause some sort of reaction. Even if it was just some more futile denial, "Were you trying to kill yourself?"

America looked at Russia again. The helplessness becoming too much for the young nation to handle, as tears were beginning to form in his eyes. His voice wavered as he retorted, "Why don't you just tell everyone how much of an attention whore I am!? Because I failed to kill myself, so that makes me pathetic! I bet they'll have a good laugh after hearing about this. Especially since I'm just some unlovable-"

"Fredka, none of that's true!"

Russia gently cupped America's cheeks, so that he would have no choice, but to look at him, "How can you consider yourself an attention seeker, when you were trying to hide this?"

America opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a bunch of strangled sobs. As soon as Russia received this reaction, he pulled America into yet another protective hug. Unlike the other times he held the young nation, America wrapped his arms around him tightly and shoved his face into Russia's shoulder. While America continued to bawl his eyes out, Russia patiently rubbed his back. Eventually, after America regained some of his composure, he lifted his head from Russia's shoulder so that he would be able to speak, "I'm just so sick of living! Every single time something goes wrong in my country, everyone blames me! I don't even think humans realize how easy they have it. Sure, sometimes they have hardships, but they don't have nearly as many responsibilities as us. And at least they don't have to live hundreds or even thousands of years. I just wish I could live a simple and short life like that, you know?"

Russia remained silent, listening to everything America was saying. Although, he did sort of find it ironic that the young nation was suddenly so willing to tell him everything that was making him so miserable. He simply put it off as America being too emotionally distressed to realize what he was saying. America, on the other hand, simply couldn't help it. He'd kept everything to himself for so long, and he just wanted to be able to talk to someone about his struggle for once. Even if that certain someone happened to be Russia. Besides, Russia already knew about the scars, and why he inflicted them into his flesh, so would it really make a difference if he told him what was going on?

America quickly rubbed some tears away with his sleeve before continuing, "And I'm just not cut out for this life! How can anyone as stupid and worthless as me be expected to handle all of this?"

"You're not worthless or stupid, Fredka. Please, stop being so hard on yourself."

Instead of responding, America just resumed to crying into Russia's shoulder. By the time his sobbing was finally reduced to sniffles, he began to feel somewhat dizzy due to his exhaustion. Russia held him a bit longer as he told him, "Why don't we go eat something now?"

As soon as they were both standing, Russia lead America into the kitchen and sat him down at the table. Then he prepared a cup of hot chocolate, figuring that something warm and sweet would make America feel better. After setting the hot chocolate down in front of the young nation, he said, "Why don't you drink this while you wait?"

While Russia prepared a couple of sandwiches, America slowly sipped the hot chocolate, enjoying how creamy the milk made it, along with how it also seemed to compliment the sweetness of the chocolate. The milk was definitely a lot better than how water would've made the hot chocolate taste. After finishing up the hot chocolate, and his lunch, America couldn't help but feel even more drowsy, not that his stomach was completely full. Russia seemed to catch onto the fact that the young nation was about ready to fall asleep at any moment, and decided to scoop him up into his arms before asking, "Do you want to go back to the couch, or go to the guest's room?"

America wrapped his arms around Russia, and nuzzled his head into the older nation's chest as he mumbled in response, "Bed…"

Russia smiled at this response, and couldn't help but blush a bit. How could he help himself though? Not only was America snuggling into him, but Russia found the quiet, tired voice that the young nation used to say that one word response to be plain adorable. In fact, by the time Russia was in the guest's room, he couldn't help but be a bit dispirited by the fact that he would have to drop America off on the bed. Much too his luck however, it seemed as if America didn't really want to let go of him just yet, for when Russia tried to pry his arms off so that he could lay him down and tuck him in, the young nation's eyebrows furrowed, as if he was becoming agitated, and his grip on Russia tightened as he said in a commanding tone, "No, don't leave."

Russia smiled once more, as he began to stroke America's hair and hold him tighter in hopes of encouraging him to fall asleep. After a while of this, the young nation seemed to relax in his arms, and finally close his eyes. Russia removed his glasses, so that they wouldn't be a burden, and then held America's head so that it was resting against his shoulder. This only seemed to cause America to snuggle even closer to Russia. A warmth grew in Russia's stomach as he watched America shift into a comfortable position in his arms as he thought, I wish he could be like this more often. He is cute when he's tired.

Even long after America started softly snoring, Russia was still finding it incredibly difficult to set America down on the bed and leave. However, Russia remembered that he still had some paperwork to do. With a sigh of disappointment, he finally tucked America in, and planted a kiss on his forehead before saying in a voice that was almost a whisper, "Sometimes, you make me very happy. Even when you try to get on my nerves."

Then, a frown invaded Russia's features as he thought back to the heart wrenching words America spoke before adding, "I just wish you weren't so miserable."


	8. Chapter 8

America awoke to the feeling of someone gently shaking his shoulder. Now realizing that there was a light on in the room, trying to invade his closed eyes, he let out a groan of annoyance as he hid his face under a blanket. As soon as he did this, he felt someone tug the blanket away from his face and almost completely off of his entire body. This caused America to start shivering, as his body was not used to normal room temperature yet. After he let out yet another groan, he heard someone with a Russian accent say, "Fredka, your breakfast is getting cold."

America turned away from the one was trying to wake him up, and covered his eyes with his arm. His voice was wispy due to his exhaustion as he retorted, "I don't care. Now let me sleep, Russia."

"Amerika, you have been asleep for twelve hours, and I want to take you with me to get groceries."

"Can't you just go by yourself?"

Russia felt a slight pinch of annoyance at this response, yet he continued to remain patient with America as he explained, "You are very pale right now, Amerika. You need some sunlight."

"Look who's talking."

Of course, Russia didn't find it at all surprising that America would think he was being a hypocrite, "Amerika, I can't help the fact that I'm pale. You, however, look like you're supposed to have a bit of a tan."

"As if I'm going to be able to get any sunlight anyways. It's pretty much always cloudy here," America glanced out the window, before continuing, "It's still dark outside too. Why are we going this early?"

"It will probably be light out when you are ready," Russia explained, "I wanted to go later, but there is going to be a blizzard at noon. Besides, you can still get sunlight when it's cloudy outside."

After that was said, Russia decided to head over to the doorway, but before exiting the room, he added, "I'll give you some new clothes after breakfast. You can take shower afterwards, but make sure that your hair is completely dry before we head out."

As Russia left the room, America couldn't help but roll his eyes at the last comment as he mentally remarked, Obviously. After taking a few more moments of sitting on the guest room's bed so that he could fully wake up, and adapt to the room's temperature, America headed out of the room and downstairs to the kitchen to find a plate of pancakes waiting to be eaten. He sat down at the table, and began to shovel the pancakes into his mouth. By the time there were only a few morsels left on the plate, America began to gag. Therefore, he pushed the plate away, and waited for Russia to hand him some new clothes so that he would be able to change and take a shower (he had asked for a towel).

America couldn't help but suddenly relax as warm water began to wash over him. He hardly ever had the chance to feel so warm during the past week, what not with the constant chills. The sensation could easily be compared to all of the times that Russia hugged him when he became upset, and well, obviously the other times that he bathed. Eventually, after spending about five minutes of just standing there in the warm water, America couldn't help but think about all of the times that Russia decided to help him. As time passed by, and as all of his guilt trips seemed to outweigh any reassurance that Russia gave him when he found out about his secret, America was beginning to find it difficult to believe that the older nation actually cared about what he was going through. Sure, Russia never used the excuse of, 'he was just being selfish', 'he can just snap out of it', or whatever people would say to avoid caring about the fact that someone was actually miserable, but he still thought that his current caretaker was only listening to him and comforting him for the sake of not wanting to feel responsible if anything happened.

America felt his throat somewhat clench as he continued to convince himself that Russia actually seemed to be annoyed with him when he cried into his shoulder. He thought that it would be better if Russia neglected his problem, and began to think of him as some pathetic attention seeker. As much as the thought of being deprived of acceptance and love made America want to disappear from existence, he figured that that way, Russia wouldn't be wasting his time on someone so 'worthless', and therefore could try to help someone else that actually suffered with actual depression (he thought that would be any depressed individual that wasn't him). If Russia would stop pretending to care, then America would be able to end himself without putting the older nation through an endless loop of guilt, and everyone would be happy.

By the time America had finally managed to recover from yet another session of reminding himself of everything he thought was wrong with him, he finished up with his shower, and dried off before dressing up in the clothes that Russia gave him. As soon as he was at the front door, Russia handed him some winter clothing, and once America was prepared for the cold, they headed out. As soon as they were outside, America found himself admiring the gray shades that were present upon the clouds due to the morning sun's light, along with how the strange display of lighting seemed to make the snow appear more of a bluish white in color. Usually during a cloudy day, whether it was late fall or the middle of winter, he would often find himself staring at the trees. Especially on cloudy days when the sky was completely white, for when he compared something something such as the dark branches of the tree in a forest to the pale sky, it almost sort of seemed to him as if the colors of the world were fading into a white void. As if the branches were veins of color in the empty sky that struggled to remain in existence.

America had only been out in the snow for what seemed to be fifteen minutes, and yet he still couldn't help but feel relieved once in was inside of the car, for his legs and face, which obviously had the least amount of protection from the harsh cold, already felt as if they were turning to ice. Even with the thick winter jacket on, he was still shivering like a leaf, as Russia turned on the car so that it would warm up. It didn't take too long at all for everything to warm up inside of the car, and America felt his shivering cease as the seat was beginning to heat up, and his thighs were relieved of the icy feeling.

As America warmed up in the car, he watched Russia wipe snow from the windows, for it was possibly the only form of entertainment he'd received all day. He didn't know why, but he seemed to receive some sort of satisfaction from watching him do so; as if he was watching an unsolved problem he didn't even know he had be solved for him. It really didn't make any sense to him, but at least aside from the beauty the morning sky provided, the action was able to give him some distraction from his depressing thoughts.

By the time Russia was finally finished with ridding the car of the snow (which only seemed to take a few minutes, since it was all fluffy snow and there was no ice), he opened the door to sit down in the driver's seat, and began to take off for the store. As soon as they were on the road, Russia asked, "Is there anything you want?"

America averted his attention to the window, obvious disinterest in his tone, "Not really."

"Are you sure? You don't have to be afraid to ask for anything."

It already seemed as if America was losing his patience, as he grumbled, "I'm sure."

Of course, what could Russia expect? He knew perfectly was that America would most likely turn down his offer to buy him anything. Even if America wasn't depressed to an extremely concerning extent, the young nation would have probably taken such an offer as a personal jab. Especially if it came from Russia of all people. Of course, Russia knew that it would have, if America was his normal self, been his pride acting up. He found that to be quite easy to forgive. After all, America was still quite young, and well, it was sort of in a nation's nature to want to be at the top, or at least, that was how things generally were for a large portion of them.

After spending approximately ten minutes watching the constantly changing scenery outside the car window, America finally averted his attention away from the distraction, as they had finally arrived at the store. As soon as Russia parked the car, the two nations left the vehicle, and made their way towards the store. Of course, the short walk to the building in the harsh gelid air left America a teeth chattering mess once they were finally inside. Russia, on the other hand, didn't seem to be deterred in the slightest.

Unfortunately for the American, Russia decided to go to the produce section first, as it was the closest. Either that, or America figured that Russia noticed he was cold, and decided to make him even more miserable by going for the coldest part of the grocery store right after they had been outside. Well, it didn't seem as if Russia really needed to spend hours staring at produce, for after he had gathered some fruits and vegetables, he moved on.

Once America was completely warmed up, it didn't take too long for him to start mindlessly following Russia around. There was absolutely nothing interesting about about looking at a bunch of food to the young nation, so instead, he decided to start losing himself in yet some more thoughts of self hatred. Not that that was necessarily a better alternative. Any enthusiasm he had for that day was immediately forgotten, as the thoughts made him go numb. Thankfully, as soon as he moved so that he was right next to Russia, the older nation turned to look behind him before saying, "Fredka?"

As soon as he heard the Russian version of his name, America was dragged from his negative thoughts, and immediately turned his focus towards Russia. After taking a moment to figure out that Russia seemed to be looking for him, America pondered, How can he be so stupid? Once he'd given Russia a few seconds to find him, he growled, "I'm right here!"

Russia immediately whipped his head around, and gave America a small smile, despite the fact that the young nation was glaring at him. The smile made America want to do nothing more than punch Russia in the face for being so oblivious and cheerful. There's no way that this guy can actually be serious about wanting to help me. He's being way too optimistic about it. America thought, and then concluded, He's probably just trying to mock me. Of course, the young nation's thoughts were so distracting to him at the moment (even if they were just interrupted, he would often find himself going right back to them a moment later), he was hardly able to hear Russia say, "You are so quiet today. I almost thought I had lost you."

America rolled his eyes at the comment, becoming irritated to quite an unhealthy extent with the older nation's parent like tendencies. He did alredy have England who would sometimes pester him if he wasn't 'acting right'. He didn't want another nation to forget about the fact that he was grown up, and start treating him as if he was just some child that still needed guidance. Well, at least it wasn't the worst thing the two nations could've done to him. At least during the times when England was acting parental, he wasn't harsh. There just happened to be times when the Brit would become extremely irritable, and he didn't necessarily single only one person out when he began to yell. After all, he did quarrel with France more often than he did with any other nation. Still, the sudden switches from simpatico to out right aggressive did catch America off guard at times. However, he tried not to let it bother him too much, as he figured that his former mentor was just easy to irritate, and during world meetings, there were plenty of stressors for everyone.

Fortunately, America didn't have spend too much more time at the store, as soon enough, Russia had finally purchased the groceries, and the two nations left the store. Much to America's adversity however, he'd become accustomed to wearing a jacket while walking around in a building, so the moment he went outside, to be met with the chilly air, he was once more, a shivering mess. Perhaps it was a bit warmer outside than it was when America first entered the store, since the clouds seemed to be brighter, but it was still too cold for America to really know the difference, and in all honesty, he didn't really care. What was the point in caring for a minuscule temperature difference if either way, it left an individual shivering in a pathetic attempt to keep warm?

As soon as they were at the car, Russia seemed to take notice in America's rather violent shivering, so he told the young nation, "Why don't you get in car now? I will take care of these groceries."

America complied, and sat down in the now somewhat cold passenger's seat as he waited for Russia to put the groceries away in the trunk. Once that task was completed, the grey haired nation then sat down in the driver's seat of the car, started the vehicle up, and began to drive back home. About a few seconds into the drive, Russia stated, "I should probably give you more layers to dress in next time."

The young nation didn't respond, but instead grew an interest in the passing building. Russia furrowed his eyebrows in slight worry at this reaction, and continued to speak, "Amerika, you're starting to worry me. Are you feeling alright today?"

America mumbled his response, obvious disinterest clear in his voice, "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You know you can tell me if something is bothering you, right?"

"No, I didn't know that, and I don't care either."

After receiving that harsh response, Russia decided that it would be best to stay silent for the rest of the drive. I thought that taking him outside and letting him walk around for a bit would make him feel a little better. He's been stuck in my house for such a long time. Being forced to stay in one place must have made him feel worse. Maybe he would have enjoyed this more if it wasn't so cold. He did look miserable when we were out in the cold. Russia quickly found himself getting even deeper into his thoughts, but of course, he was still able to focus on the road even as a nagging thought struck him, Of course that's not the only reason why I brought him. I know this is terrible, but I can't trust him to be alone in one building. After finding out what caused those scars… Russia felt his heart clench at the vivid image of America slowly dragging a knife through the bottom of his forearms, making sure that the glinting blade was deep enough to slice though as much flesh as possible, I just wish I could trust him…

By the time they were at Russia's house, America removed his winter gear as quickly as possible before telling Russia, "I'm going to bed now."

Russia didn't respond. Sure, the young nation had slept for twelve hours straight, but at the same time, he had a rough night, and was probably still somewhat exhausted from all of that crying. Of course, he still didn't keep his guard down while America headed to the guest's room. There was not much background noise, so he would've been able to tell whether or not America was headed for the correct destination. About five minutes after putting the groceries away, he decided to check on America, only to be filled with relief when he found that the young nation was fast asleep.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem as if the short nap helped with America's mood at all. Instead, being woken after one hour of sleep only seemed to make him grumpy, and of course, Russia would've happily let him sleep longer, but after sleeping for twelve hours, and then taking a nap, he figured that it probably wouldn't be a great idea to let America sleep any longer. The nap probably wasn't such a great idea either, as all it seemed to do was make the American seem even more exhausted than he was before. That was, until a couple of hours after dinner. Somehow, the young nation seemed to magically become wide awake late in the evening (outside, it looked as if it was midnight).

Of course he was happy that the young nation wasn't feeling so tired anymore, but of course, that led to complaints such as "I'm bored." or "I wish that I didn't have to stay here, you're not even helping me."

After a while of listening to America's complaints, and trying to recommend some things that he could do, which the young nation obviously ignored, Russia explained in a stern voice, "Amerika, I'm trying to help you, but you're going to have to start helping yourself as well. If you keep acting closed minded towards my attempts to help you, and don't try to be a little more optimistic, you're only going to continue to be miserable."

Suddenly, adrenaline began to rush through America's body, as his shoulders began to tense as a sign that he was becoming defensive, "I'm not listening to your advice because it sounds half hearted. I doubt you even care about what I'm going through, and you really shouldn't. If you had let me die that day you saved me, everyone would've been happier."

After hearing that response, Russia's expression softened, "You shouldn't say things like that."

"But it's true, Russia. I-"

Russia pulled America into a gentle embrace, "Shh, that's enough, Amerika."

"Stop acting like you care! All you're doing is making me feel terrible. You shouldn't be wasting your time on me. All this is going to do is make you feel depressed, and I doubt you've ever felt that way before. Why are you wasting your time on me when you could, well, just not put up with a burden like me?"

America couldn't help but cringe when his voice started to waver, however, that wasn't necessarily his main concern at that moment. As soon as he felt Russia stiffen, he pushed himself out of the older nation's arms, so that he would be able to examine his body language and facial expressions. There was hurt in Russia's amethyst's eyes, so much to the point where America couldn't help but feel concerned for what had been the cause of the intense agony he'd just made his fellow nation feel. Was he really that upset with the idea of America talking about wanting to leave, and how the world would be a much better place without him? Did saying all of those things cause Russia to suddenly recall something that was meant to stay hidden in the darkest corner of his mind? Was he hurt by the assumption America made about him never feeling depressed? The more America thought about, the more guilty he became about the entire situation. After thinking about a way he could attempt to apologize, he began, "I'm sorry, Russia. I really didn't mean to-"

Instead, the Russian only seemed to become more emotional as he suddenly blurted, "I'm trying to help you because I know what it is like to feel alone."

America felt his voice become more faint with the overwhelming guilt, "Russia, really. I wasn't trying to-"

"It's fine, Fredka," Russia suppressed a sigh before continuing, as he tried to regain his composure, "You didn't know."

There was a long moment of silence, before America gained the confidence to finally ask, "Russia, can you please tell me what happened?"

"I don't really want to trouble you."

"I hate to be nosy, but I really want to know what happened," after a moment of hesitation, he continued, "I mean, I might be able to help you, if this still affects you in some way. Of course, you don't have to tell me if it's only going to make you feel worse."

Russia glanced over at the young nation, taking notice of the worry in America's pleading expression right away. Of course, he hated seeing his love interest experience even a pinch of distress, and he knew that the only way to perhaps ease America's worry by at least a smidgen was to tell him what made him so upset in a way that may seem as if it almost never affected the quality of his life. Which of course, would be a huge lie for the most part, but at least he'd managed to recover quite a bit, despite the nightmares and bouts of depression he would sometimes have. After spending a few more moments to consider whether or not it would be a great idea to tell America, he finally began, "I guess if I am trying to help you, you deserve to know what happened."

Russia paused for a moment to try and think of where to begin, "For the most part, I have been miserable my entire life. When I was young, I would always try to defend myself as a bunch of other nation constantly ganged up on me, and well, living in a cold climate made living conditions hard. Even for those who were used to it. Eventually, I was able to defend my from the other nations, but that took a very long time, and of course, they put me through a lot of suffering during that time. Since everyone seemed to hate me no matter what, and would take advantage of me, I sometimes thought that living wasn't worth it. Of course, there was also some famines I managed to survive as well. However, my depression was at it's worst when one of my old bosses came into power. Yes, he did help me become strong, but at the same time, he was just… brutal."

America noticed that Russia already seemed to be trembling, and decided to pull him into an embrace, "It's okay, Russia. You don't have to tell me anymore."

As soon as he was in America's arms, he immediately buried his face into the young nation's shoulder, feeling a bit more safe in his arms, but not enough to rid him of the vivid memories. In the past, America would've found a situation such as this one awkward. However, he couldn't help but feel horrible for Russia. He couldn't think of anything the poor nation did to deserve such treatment throughout his life.

When the trembling showed no signs of dying down, America decided to start stroking Russia's hair, in hopes of soothing the frightened nation. While doing so, he couldn't help but admire the coloration of the different strands. Depending on how the light coming from the lamp hit Russia's hair, some strands would appear a light blonde, along with the occasional white. The hair that wasn't really hit by the light would either appear a dark grayish blonde, or just a plain silver. In his bout of fascination, America began to play with various strands of Russia's hair, and watched as the colors change while his finger made the strands shift.

Soon, his attention was immediately averted from Russia's hair as he felt his shoulder become wet. America sighed, as he wrapped his arms tighter around the nation he was trying to comfort, "Russia, it's okay. He can't hurt you anymore."

Instead of responding, Russia continued to silently cry into America's shoulder as the young nation proceeded to whisper words of reassurance to him. Eventually, after what seemed to be an eternity non-stop trembling, Russia seemed to finally relax in America's arms. After a while of silently continuing to stroke Russia's hair, he finally decided to ask, "How come you're so willing to help me, when you've obviously had it so much worse."

Russia moved his head from America's shoulder, so that he would be able to reply, "It doesn't matter whether or not you had it worse. The point is that you are miserable to the point where you consider death an option, and that needs to be fixed. Besides, it's fine. It doesn't really effect me too much anymore."

"You really shouldn't waste your time on me, though."

Russia pushed himself back so that he would be able to look America in the eye, and explained, "I know this is hard for you to believe, but you deserve to be happy."

Of course, America still didn't seem convinced, but Russia wasn't ready to give up, "You may have not known this, Fredka, but I think you deserve to be the happiest person on the planet."

Confusion was present in America's voice, "But, why?"

Russia decided to rest his head on America's chest as he explained, "You are really not as bad as you think, Amerika. It may take you a while to realize that, but I'm more than willing to wait for that day to come."

After that, neither of the two nations said anything. America still couldn't even try to accustom to the fact that Russia actually cared enough to help him out, even after all he did to try and push him away. Eventually, all of his constant wondering on how Russia could possibly care enough to help him out was finally put to an end for that night, as both he and Russia fell asleep together on the couch.


	9. Chapter 9

A few days had passed since America found out about Russia's experiences with depression, and things had been a bit dull for the American. That was to be expected though, as his depression never failed to give any day a gloomy feeling. Russia would always try to have a conversation with him, in hopes of making things more lively for the American. However, despite the fact that America had been finding most food to not only be disgusting, but also something he was not worthy of consuming, he found that the only thing he really looked forward to at Russia's house was his cooking. Really, America never thought of Russia as being the type that would be great at cooking. He really wasn't known for it, and yet, as soon as America began to eat the Russian's food, he would easily forget about his guilt, and would sometimes find himself with a belly ache after a meal.

America had just left the shower, dried off, and changed into some new clothes, after Russia woke him up that morning to tell him that breakfast would be ready soon. Once he was out of the bathroom, and prepared for the day, he was about to make his way out of the guest room, until he noticed a couple of chocolate bars sitting on the night stand with a note on top of them. Curious, America walked over to the nightstand, and picked up the note to find it say, I almost forgot to give these to you. You didn't seem to be paying attention while we were shopping, so I thought that it could be surprise.

America set the note down, beginning to feel a bit shocked that Russia was actually willing to give him something as simple as two chocolate bars. However, he eventually put it off as Russia just trying to be friendly, and of course, despite the fact that he didn't feel as if he deserved the small gift, he was still grateful for it.

After setting the note back down on top of the chocolate bars, America headed downstairs so that he could eat breakfast with Russia. As usual, the first meal of the day was always silent, quick, and of course, the young nation was finding the food to be rather delightful, rather than unpleasant. Once America had finished up his breakfast, and added the plate to the minuscule stack of dishes in the sink that were waiting to be cleaned, he heard Russia say, "There's going to be a meeting soon."

At this, America felt his enthusiasm plummet, to be replaced with dread as he began to think about how terrible and boring the next meeting was going to be. Of course, how did this news not surprise him? After all, he had been in such a cheery mood that morning, there was bound to be something to ruin things for him. When he turned to face Russia, America was not afraid to express his defiance, "I'm not going."

Russia sighed at this. Sure, the nation had been rather stubborn during the time that he'd taken care of him, but he certainly wasn't expecting America to blatantly refuse to go to a meeting. Despite the rather childish refusal however, Russia decided that it would be best to at least try and convince America to change his mind, "I know you don't want to go. You have a responsibility though. It will only be for a couple of hours, Fredka. Afterwards, you won't have to worry about going to another meeting for an entire month."

"I said that I'm not going, and I don't care what you say."

"Fredka, all your boss is asking you to do is make a presentation based on the topic of the meeting, and take notes on what the other nations have to say. Really, you are lucky that he's being understanding towards your situation, and only expects you to do that much this month. Besides, if you don't attend the meeting, it will only cause a bunch of problems. Do you want some nation to assume that you're sick, and possibly try to attack your people and conquer you?"

"I doubt that would happen if you just told someone that I didn't want to come."

"That's not going to work, Amerika. Who's going to believe me? I've seen the looks they give me. I know they don't trust me. Saying that would only cause the nations that care about you to get angry, and possibly obtain the bravery to interrogate me and find a way to make me miserable for 'hurting' you."

After hearing that, America couldn't help but feel guilty about all of the times he openly put Russia off as some horrible villain. After taking a moment to think about what Russia said could happen if he didn't attend the meeting, all he could think to say in response was, "Russia, I really don't want to go."

"Amerika, can you at least tell me why you don't want to go? Maybe I can help you."

America hesitated for a moment, before saying, "Some of the nations don't listen to my ideas anymore, so I don't really see any point in sharing them. Even my boss is telling me that my presentations are starting to seem subpar."

Russia tried to come up with a way to respond that wouldn't seem too offensive. Obvious uncertainty towards how the young nation could interpret his words could easily be detected in his voice, "Well, he is right about you needing some practice expressing your ideas."

As soon as America gave him a hurt expression, Russia couldn't help but feel even more guilty for what he just said. The shock in America's tone certainly didn't help, "What, you too?"

"Nyet, it's nothing to be upset about," Russia began to think hesitantly for a way to reassure his love interest, as if he was an older sibling trying to prevent a younger sibling of his from crying, in the fear of being punished, "You are capable of doing a decent job expressing your ideas. You just need a little help."

For a moment, America remained silent, before turning away from Russia, and saying, "Oh well, it shouldn't matter whether or not I'm good at making presentations anyways, because I'm not going."

Russia stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. He knew that America would have to attend the meeting, and obviously being forceful with him was not an option. For one, that simply wouldn't work out anyways, as America would put up a fit, and everyone would become suspicious of Russia. Another reason why he couldn't be forceful was because he didn't really find it necessary, but instead, hurtful. America was all grown up, and would never deserve such treatment unless he was causing harm to himself or others. He wanted the young nation to feel as if he at least had control. Yet, it seemed as if being forceful, or resorting to other drastic measures, such as sharing something terrible that had happened to him in the past was the only way to make America listen.

Then, after a few more moments of thought, he realized something. Ever since he'd been willing to make himself more vulnerable in America's presence, and told him about his own depression, and what had caused it, the young nation seemed to be a lot more respectful towards him; even going as far as to ask Russia if he was okay a few times the day after he broke down and became a trembling mess in his arms. Perhaps America would be willing to actually listen for once if he gave him just one more reason to go, and a bit more reassurance. Therefore, Russia decided to walk over to the seemingly overly skeptical nation, and told him, "Fredka, I'm sure that the others wouldn't immediately shoot down your ideas. They just expect a lot from you, because you proved that you are capable of doing a lot for the world, and for yourself. You did gain your independence, and sure, you needed help, but it was still admirable. Sometimes, I think they forget that you are still a child compared to the rest of us."

After that was said, America turned to look at Russia, all of the anger from his expression completely gone. However, Russia didn't seem to be finished, "All you have to do is make a few decent presentations, and maybe try to talk a few problems over with some of the nations, and I'm sure that things will be fine. If everything gets resolved, and if there is still someone pestering you for no reason, I will deal with them."

America's eyes suddenly widened at the last comment as he inquired, "What do you mean 'you will deal with them'?"

"Don't worry about it," Russia stated, "I will make sure that they learn to not bother you. It will be fine."

"Russia, I really don't like the sounds of that. Can you please not do what I think you're going to do?"

Russia couldn't help but frown at the worry on America's face. With a sigh, he decided to pull the young nation into a hug in an attempt to reassure him, and said, "But we can't have children that can't play nice."

"Russia!"

A sudden emptiness began to fill his chest when he felt America tense up in his arms. He didn't understand why the young nation thought that a simple punishment towards the ones who decided to hurt him would be so terrible. Surely it wouldn't cause the nations too much harm. The fact that America seemed to be acting as if such an action would be traumatizing only made him more confused and upset. He didn't want to traumatize anyone, he just wanted everyone to get along (even though he sometimes did enjoy listening to the other nations argue), and for his love interest to be happy. Eventually, he finally suppressed a sigh, and told America, "If you're really this upset about me punishing them, I won't do it."

At this response, America seemed to be much more relieved. However, there still seemed to be a slight twinge of mistrust within his demeanor. Russia shrugged it off anyways. As long as he did his best to not upset the young nation, he was sure that things were going to be fine.

Russia spent a few more days with America, making sure that the two of them were both properly prepared for the meeting. Of course, while he was helping out America, Russia was willing to respect any private information the young nation and his boss had. Instead, he chose to help him out with things such as teaching him how to act more professional while he was presenting his ideas. At first, he found the fact that America was wiling to accept his help in the first place to be quite surprising. Even if there were a few times when America seemed to be somewhat annoyed when Russia pointed out that he was doing something wrong.

The way to the country in which the meeting would be held didn't seem to cause America too much stress. The young nation, in fact, seemed to find the passing scenery to be quite interesting. He did look quite disappointed when both him and Russia finally didn't have to travel in anymore vehicles for the day, and would instead be stuck in a hotel room for the rest of the night (they'd arrived at the country they were headed for rather late in the evening).

However, instead of letting himself stay upset over some minuscule disappointment, America decided to review his notes for his presentation, since he was paranoid of the possibility of messing up. He'd spent two hours reviewing notes, until the exhaustion from traveling and staying up later than he usually did (Russia was usually an early riser, so he it was becoming a habit for him to start waking up and going to bed early) finally hit him. It didn't seem to take too long for Russia to figure out that America was extremely tired, as he would glance at him every five minutes to see how he was doing. As soon as he did notice that America was trying his best to stay awake, he suggested, "Why don't you go to sleep now?"

Exhaustion seemed to cause America to nearly mumble his response, "I can't. I'm still reviewing my notes."

Russia decided to walk over to the desk America was sitting at, and wrap his arms around the young nation as if he was about to pick him up, "I'm sure you will do just fine. Just get some rest now."

It didn't seem as if America was going to protest, as he began to snuggle against Russia. Russia decided to take this as permission from the young nation to carry him to bed and tuck him in. As soon as he was sitting down on a bed, he removed America's glasses and laid him down so that his head was resting on Russia's lap (of course, that wasn't necessary in the slightest, but he knew that America was in no state to really care about where he fell asleep, and he didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to have the young nation's head resting on his lap). Once it seemed as if America was in a comfortable position, he pulled the blanket over the young nation's form, and began to stroke his hair until he fell asleep.

While America continued to sleep with his head rested on the older nation's lap, Russia almost always had his attention on the scarf he was knitting. Sometimes, when he needed to take a short break, he would gaze at America, only to admire just how beautiful the nation was. He knew it was obsessive. Everything about his love for the young nation was obsessive, and would probably be considered pointless to everyone who wasn't him. Sometimes, he tried to think of a reason for why he loved America so much, and sure, he'd come up with quite a few. Although, to him, the reasons never seemed to be enough to explain his great amount of affection. He could've easily found another nation that was as loud as America, or that had such young energy. The reason why used to disturb him quite a bit back when he thought that he would never have a chance with America, but at that moment, he wondered why it would even matter. America didn't mind his company, and seemed to enjoy being cuddled by him now, and Russia was completely happy with that. Not even the thought of that being the most he could ever have from the young nation bothered him.

After what seemed to be half of an hour of having America snuggle with him, Russia eventually began to grow drowsy, and decided to set the scarf he was working on on top of the night stand before carefully (as to not wake the young nation up) placing America to his side of the bed. As soon as he readjusted the blankets, Russia turned off the lamp, and snuggled under the covers so that he could pull America against his body, and cuddle with him some more before finally drifting off to sleep.

Russia awoke the next morning to find that America was still sound asleep in his arms. At first, all he wanted to do was cuddle with America for the first hour of the day, but then he remembered that they had to attend a meeting. Russia glanced at the clock to find that both he and America had about one and a half hours to prepare for the meeting and arrive there. Therefore, he decided to slide out of bed, and start gently shaking America awake, "Amerika, it's time to get ready for the meeting."

America furrowed his eyebrows with annoyance, and mumbled with a sleepy voice, "No, I don't wanna."

Of course, America was being stubborn about waking up as usual. The stubbornness wasn't necessarily enough to bother him though, as he turned on the lamp in order to cause a slight discomfort for America, "Come on, Amerika."

Deciding that he wasn't going to be able to have another minute of sleep, America decided to wake up in order to prepare for the meeting. After reviewing his notes one last time, eating some breakfast, and taking care of his hygiene, he began to head for the meeting with Russia. America couldn't help but be relieved to find that they were some of the earliest nations to the meeting. Sure, that meant that more attention would likely be drawn to him as he walked toward his seat, but due to his current state, he felt much safer in a small group of people, rather than a room full of at least ten.

Since everything was practically silent (aside from the indistinct conversation a couple of nations would sometimes have), America decided to use the time to brace himself for his presentation, and remember what Russia had told him about how he should present himself (according to Russia, there had been some times when America had been able to do so properly during a few meetings in the past, but he always had trouble remembering exactly what he did right that time, and well, what he was supposed to do in the first place).

Thinking about how he would execute the presentation, however, caused him to start thinking about what could go wrong. Then he began to think about his notes, and came up with some flaws that would cause everyone else to put his presentation off as yet another unintelligent snafu. America immediately pulled out his notes to try and correct where he thought that he went wrong, and at first, the errors he saw were only minuscule things, such as there being too many pointless explanations, or that what he was planning on communicating to everyone else didn't at all seem well thought out. Unfortunately, as time passed by, the flaws that he continued to absentmindedly come up with only seemed to become vaster. Eventually, he ended up pushing his notes aside, and trying too look away from them as if he was trying to pretend that they never even existed. Meanwhile, he started to listen to his invasive thoughts, There's no way that they'll actually listen to that idea, even if it was my boss who can up with it. He actually knew what he was talking, I'm just too much of an idiot to actually make the idea even seem the slightest bit intelligent.

Then, he flinched when he felt someone rest their hand on his shoulder. At first, he was reluctant to make eye contact with whoever was touching him, but he eventually decided that not looking would only make things seem awkward, and turned his head to find out who it was. He tired his best not to jolt with shock when he found England staring at him with what seemed to be concern. As if he couldn't be more muddled by the situation, England asked, "Are you feeling alright."

America turned away from England, "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You just seem so frustrated."

America wanted to start lashing out at England right there and then for caring, but instead, he just replied with a simple, "Yes, I'm fine."

Obvious uncertainty could be heard in England's voice, "Okay."

As England sat down in his seat, next to America, he glanced at the young nation as if he was trying to determine one last time whether or not America was alright. Meanwhile, Russia couldn't help but bristle with envy when he saw England show America some concern (or at least, he tried to mentally deny the fact that he was jealous, since he found such an emotion to be quite foolish). After a while, however, he was able to push the emotion away. What right did he have to be angry with England when he was merely trying to help America? It wasn't as if England showed any interest towards the young nation either. Really, Russia had no reason to be jealous of anyone, as America seemed to show no interest in anyone, and no one but him, showed interest in the American, and with that in mind, Russia couldn't help but feel both relieved and somewhat embarrassed at the same time.

At last, the meeting finally began. Although, Russia couldn't necessarily say that it seemed as if things were going to great for America. The poor nation looked as if he was about to have a heart attack with how nervous he seemed to be. As much as he wanted to pull America out of the meeting room, so that he wouldn't have to deal with the stress, he knew that the young nation would have to do his job of representing a country. It sort of made him wonder why America was acting so nervous in the first place. After all, America had spent hours just revising his notes; even throwing old plans out to start all over again with something that he thought would work much better. Really, with so much time and effort, America should've felt more confident about his work. Unless of course he'd become so much of a perfectionist to the point that he wasn't willing to accept any of his hard work, and therefore, would consider it incomplete.

Russia certainly hoped that that was not the case. He absolutely abhorred the thought of the young nation just throwing away all of his progress just because he thought that the presentation wasn't able to meet anyone's standards.

Eventually, when it became America's turn to present, the nation just so happened to deny the fact that he had anything to share. This lead to a few other nations being upset with him, but much to the young nation's surprise, some of them either didn't care, or seemed to have expected it. He didn't know whether to feel relieved by this, or offended. However, it didn't seem as if either of those emotions would matter much, for once he saw Russia give him a glare of disapproval, he immediately, felt horrible for what he just did.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem as if America could easily recover from that glare. Usually, he didn't take such actions to heart (depending on the situation, of course), but Russia had been there for him during the past few weeks, and really seemed intent on having America share his presentation. His former rival had even taken some time out of his day to help him out, and well, give him a reason to go to the meeting in the first place. He really wasn't sure what Russia was going to do or say once the meeting was over.

While every other nation became excited once the meeting was finally over, America couldn't help but only feel dread for what was to come. He was sure that Russia wouldn't do anything drastic, but he still wasn't thrilled with the fact that the northern nation still seemed to be angry with him. Of course, there was still the option of simply avoiding a confrontation. In fact, he had the chance to just flee from Russia, and flee from the rest of the nations so that he could find a place to hide. Yet on a second thought, that plan didn't seem as if it would work out to well. If he started to suddenly dart, everyone, even the strangers he knew that he would never meet in the city, would become suspicious of him. Unless of course, he sprinted out of the building first, and then pretended that he was jogging so that the strangers would just assume that he was exercising, and not running for his life. Sure, jogging would make it a lot easier to for someone to catch him, but it wasn't as if someone could stop him from evading their company in the middle of public. For a moment, America actually considered doing this, but then he realized that that seemed to be a complete overreaction to the situation.

As soon as he was in a hallway that seemed to be completely deserted, aside from Russia, who had been following him, he stopped walking when he noticed that Russia had halted to turn and face him. America didn't dare to turn and meet his gaze when Russia started to say, "Why didn't you present?"

There was a long pause, as Russia seemed to be waiting for America to respond. However, once Russia realized that it didn't seem as if America was going to do that, he continued, "You put so much time and effort into your presentation, and yet you still refused to share it. The only thing you achieved today was making everyone angry with you. Why?"

It was obvious that America was hesitant to respond, "Because I was nervous?"

"Nervous?" Russia seemed to slightly raise is voice at this response, clearly outraged, "You had no problem presenting before. You spent so much time preparing for the meeting. I even helped you prepare, and you were still feeling nervous about this? Why didn't you just tell me!? You knew that I could have helped you with that."

"Yes," America spoke, his speech seeming rushed, as if he just wanted to end the conversation, and be somewhere else, "I know I'm an idiot. I always screw everything up. Can we stop talking about this now?"

"Fredka, I never said that."

"Hey, what's going on here!"

Both Russia and America flinched when they heard someone yell. Much of their surprise, they found that that certain someone happened to be Canada. Always putting him off as someone who tried to avoid yelling, America wondered why his seemingly shy brother suddenly decided to act so bold. Despite the fact that Russia seemed to be even more shocked (America assumed that he either didn't recognize Canada at all, or thought that another one of him appeared somehow, and that he was hallucinating; which really wouldn't have surprised him, since people seemed to have an irritating inability to notice the, what he considered, obvious differences between him and his brother), he didn't take a step back when Canada started approaching him, as if he was ready to confront someone of convicting some horrible crime, "What are you trying to do to my brother?"

Clearly offended by the confrontation, Russia decided to defend himself, "I didn't do anything wrong. I was only trying to help him."

"Help him!? All I saw was you yelling at him! And I would appreciate it if you stopped trying to antagonize him when there's clearly something bothering him right now!"

As Russia and Canada continued to argue, America was finding it increasingly difficult to hold back his tears. He felt as if everything that was going on was all his fault. All he had to do was present something to the rest of the nations for ten minutes, but instead, he decided to be a complete 'idiot' and make things more complicated than they needed to be.

What seemed to be five minutes of non-stop arguing passed by, before Russia suddenly stop in mid speech to look over at America. The young nation seemed to be facing in the opposite direction from both him and Canada. Now feeling concerned for America's emotional state, Russia decided to approach the American to see if he was all right. His concern only grew when he noticed that America seemed to be crying. Immediately, after discovering this, Russia decided to pull the young nation into a hug. At first, he stayed silent, as he gently stroked America's hair, in hopes of calming him down. Then, once the young nation seemed to have regained most of his composure, he told him in a voice that was almost a whisper, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to seem so harsh. But you have to understand that these meetings are important, and that you can't just blow them off like that."

America retorted, "I know they're important."

"Then stop skipping the chance to present something."

Meanwhile, Canada couldn't help but feel somewhat awkward, and ashamed. For one, it didn't seem as if he had the right to view such a touching moment. Secondly, it didn't seem as if Russia was trying to cause America any harm or annoyance at all. Surely, his brother would've been pushing Russia away if he didn't want the other nation around. After all, America wasn't a push over.

Eventually, by the time they seemed to have things settled, Russia pulled away from America, and said, "Why don't we go now?"

For a moment, America glanced over at Canada. He really did miss spending time with his brother, and things seemed to be pretty lonely at Russia's house. Before they began to walk out of the building, America asked, "Wait, can Mattie stay with us for a while when we're at your place?"

Russia turned to look at Canada (he couldn't say that he wasn't surprised to see that someone seemed to remember is name for once), and at first, the Canadian wasn't sure if Russia seemed too fond of the idea. Despite the fact that he was now remembering how intimidating Russia could be, Canada tired to keep his voice even as he explained, "H-hey, I know that I must have made you extremely upset not too long ago, s-since I unfairly blamed you and what not, but I really want to know what's going on with my brother. He didn't seem to be acting right during this past two meetings, and I want to see if I can help out with the problem."

Then suddenly, Russia smiled. It was almost as if the nation had completely forgotten about the fact that they were arguing in the first place, as he replied, "Of course you can, Matvey."

Then, before turning to leave with America, he added, "I'll tell you everything that's going on once we're there, okay?"

A storm of emotions struck Canada as he thought about the current situation. He was happy that he would be able to see his brother for a while (that is, if his boss would let him, which he was sure he would be allowed to if he explained his concern), worried about what he theorized about what was going on, and shocked that Russia had let him come over, even when they were just having a heated argument. He was also shocked by the fact that America was letting Russia of all people comfort him. Even if he still did feel uncomfortable in Russia's presence, he still couldn't help but draw a conclusion from the situation; perhaps Russia really wasn't such a terrible individual after all.


	10. Chapter 10

Once twenty minutes had passed, after America arrived with Russia to the Russian's house, Canada had arrived. Despite Canada's desire to find out exactly what was going on with America as soon as possible, he was still willing to wait for everyone to settle in, as all of the traveling must have worn everyone out. Fortunately, that didn't seem to take too long, as America, the most travel worn of the three, only seemed to need to lay on the couch and stretch in order to satisfy his restless joints until lunch was ready.

After everyone was full and settled in, Canada began to speak. Although, it didn't seem as if the bashful nation was sure of whether or not he should be the first one to speak, "So, can you guys tell me what's going on now?"

"Wait," America decided to interject, "I'm not sure if I really want him to know."

Russia immediately turned to face America, as if he wasn't expecting the young nation to suddenly reject the idea. After all, he didn't seem to be the slightest bit opposed to it when he first brought it up. Immediately after he heard America admit that he wasn't fond of the idea, Russia explained, "Fredka, your brother just wants to help."

Then, America decided to lower his voice so that Canada wouldn't be able to hear him, "I don't feel comfortable with the idea of anyone else knowing though. It did take me a while to get used to the fact that you know what's going on."

Russia responded in an equally quiet voice, "I'm not forcing you to have him find out, if it really makes you uncomfortable. I'm sure he would understand if you didn't want him to know; even if he does end up being a little annoyed, since I did promise to tell him. However, I think it would help if you told him. He seems to be understanding, and he might know a few things that would help you out. Also, he's your brother, so he deserves to know."

This response only seemed to make America look even more conflicted. After a moment of thought, Russia decided to add, "If it will make you feel better, you can leave the room while I tell him. I not going to make you sit here if it makes you uncomfortable."

America thought about what Russia said for a moment before saying, "I guess I'll leave the room while you tell him then."

While America walked out of the room, Russia couldn't help but suddenly feel hesitant about the choice. He still didn't quite trust the young nation on his own. Sure, there had been times when Russia would let America be alone in a room, since he didn't want his love interest to feel as if he was trying to violate his autonomy. During the moment of silence however, he was eventually able to convince himself that as long as he was in the house, America would know better than to try and do anything harmful to himself. After all, it would take an extremely long time for America to successfully kill himself, if he managed to put himself in a position where without medical attention, he wouldn't be able to recover. Russia would often have to remind himself of this, but doing so never ceased to reassure him.

Once Russia was sure that America was completely out of ear shot, he began, "Your brother has been feeling very depressed lately, and I've been trying to help him out. He seems to be doing a little better, ever since I found him, but he still seems to have a hard time around other people. I hardly ever see him act happy as well."

There seemed to be slight confusion present on Canada's face as he asked, "Can you tell me what you mean by 'ever since you found him'?"

Russia couldn't help but be somewhat embarrassed by this, yet he decided to elaborate anyways, "A few weeks ago, I found him unconscious in a snow pile on my yard. Why he was unconscious there of all places, I have no idea. This may sound strange, but some parts of him were already frozen when I found him. I had to thaw him out, and of course, he became extremely weak and sick because of that. The first time he regained consciousness, he seemed to be completely out of it. After being there to help him wake up, I left to grab some blankets for him, since he seemed to be extremely cold. When I came back, he was crying. I don't know why. Maybe it had something to do with his depression, or maybe he was afraid of being alone at that moment.

"His eating habits seemed to be fine during the first time he was awake. However, after that, he was acting extremely stubborn when I tried to feed him. I tried to get him to eat more than a few bites at every meal, but nothing seemed to be working, so I threatened to bring him to the hospital. I also told him that I wouldn't try to stop the doctors if they force fed him. He still refused to eat, so I decided to scare him into eating again by making it seem as if he was going to the hospital."

Russia frowned when he noticed that Canada was now glaring at him with indignation. As soon as he was finished speaking, Canada decided to start scolding him, "What you did wasn't ethical. You can't just threaten someone with a force feeding like that!"

There only seemed to be more hurt and shame present in Russia's expression, as he tried to defend himself, "I really didn't want to do that to him, but I couldn't see any other to get him to eat. He eventually promised that he would eat, so he didn't end up having to go."

It was Canada's turn to feel a bit guilty, as he returned to his usual, quiet tone, "I'm sorry, Russia. I didn't really consider the fact that you were feeling desperate during the time that happened. It must have been a very complicated situation for you. I guess that I should appreciate the fact that, by the sounds of it, you tried your best to be as sympathetic and as understanding as possible. I'm glad that it seems as if Alfred has already forgiven you for doing that. I know that you only meant well, but I would hate to see him still be devastated about that situation. Of course, I still wish that you didn't do that to my brother."

Russia felt himself relax somewhat from the apology, yet he still couldn't help but feel a bit guilty, as the confrontation from earlier still seemed to be affecting him. He decided to hide this from Canada, as he did not want the young nation to feel horrible for seemingly guilt tripping him, "Thank you, for at least trying to understand. It really was a rough situation for both America and I."

"Anyways, do you think you could tell me what happened after that?"

"His eating habits returned to normal, and I was able to nurse him back to full health. However, the fact that he was refusing to eat was beginning to make me suspicious. So I began to think about what was possibly causing him to not want to eat. To me, it didn't seem as if it was an eating disorder. I'm not really an expert on that though, so I'm glad that later on, it appeared to not be that at all. Anyways, the strange aversion towards food was making me think of his behavior at the meeting. At first, I had assumed that he was sick. However, that didn't seem to be a logical inference either. Then, I remembered the scars that I saw that happened to be on the bottom of his forearms. In case you are wondering, there are two scars on both of his forearms. Both start from his wrists, and end at his elbows. I could tell by the direction that it wasn't for the sake of self harm either.

"I decided to ask him where the scars came from, but he didn't respond at first," then, Russia's voice began to waver, "When I asked him if he was trying to kill himself, he admitted that... that was the cause of the scars."

As soon as he was finished speaking, Russia turned away from Canada. His throat was beginning to feel tight; he knew that he was about to cry. Yet he tried his best to prevent that from happening by digging his fingernails into the skin on the top of his wrist. However, the fact that he was becoming angry with himself over wanting to cry only increased the urge to do so. By the time a tear finally managed to escape from one of his eyes, he heard Canada's nervous voice, "Russia? Are you alright?"

"Please leave," was Russia's response, "I want to be alone right now."

"Okay," he heard Canada say with understanding, and as soon as the young nation left the room, Russia buried his face into his arms, allowing the tears to finally escape from his eyes while silent sobs shook his body.

Meanwhile, Canada walked into the kitchen to find America slowly nibbling on a chocolate bar. As soon as America caught sight of his brother, he decided to ask, "So, I take it that I can go into the living room now?"

"No," Canada replied, "Russia wants to be alone right now. Why don't you wait a little while?"

"Is he okay?"

Canada thought for a moment on how he could respond to that question. He knew that telling his brother that Russia was upset, right after he'd been told about what was going on, would only cause America to feel culpable about the situation. Eventually, he was able to come up with, what he hoped to be, the perfect response, "He just needs a moment, that's all. I'm sure he'll be fine."

"Well, okay."

There was a moment of silence, as America resumed to silently nibbling on his chocolate. Although, he was unable to rid himself of the nagging feeling that it was all his fault that Russia was feeling upset. Maybe I can just make up for making him upset later. America thought. Eventually, Canada decided to break the silence between the two of them, "So, what made you start trusting Russia so suddenly? Surely you'd still be trying to reject his help, knowing your history with him. Or at least, you would in almost every situation I can think of."

"Well," America began, but paused for a moment to think of a way that he could try to explain the situation (or make up a realistic lie), while at the same time not giving away what he assumed to be a secret; Russia's own experiences with depression, "he did do a pretty good job at convincing me that he would be able to help. Besides, my boss told me that I have to stay with him until I'm better. At first, I was doing everything in my power to try and escape, or at least push him away, which didn't really work out too well at all, because at the time, I was still sick. Eventually, I realized that fighting was only causing problems. I mean, I might as well get along with him if I have to stay here for a while. He seems to be treating me differently lately, and I don't know why. Oh well, I guess it's a good thing that we're starting to get along."

As soon as America finished speaking, Canada began to think about how Russia suddenly seemed to be acting a lot more friendly around America than he usually did. He didn't even seem afraid of the possibility of offending Canada by putting their argument to an abrupt stop, just to make sure that America was all right. Then again, Canada couldn't understand how anyone would be offended by that. It was an argument that didn't seem to be solving anything, and it was possible that their disagreement was only causing America too much distress at the time.

Maybe I should study how he interacts with America some more. It seems like figuring this out should be pretty interesting. Canada thought.

There was yet another bout of silence, as Canada continued to think the situation over. The only sound that could be heard during that time was the sound of America throwing the wrapper from the chocolate bar away. Eventually, Canada began to think about what he was going to feed his polar bear for dinner. He was out of fish, since he'd planned to be back in his country that day. For a moment, Canada considered checking Russia's freezer for some fish, but then he realized that his host would probably not appreciate him taking a fish from the freezer. He also wasn't fond of the idea of asking Russia if he could feed his polar bear any fish that he might have from the freezer. Due to how shy he was, asking for things always seemed to nearly make him have a panic attack. He knew that some of his fears of social interaction were irrational, and he tried to overcome them, but he was too used to seemingly being invisible and being hurt because of that to really allow himself to become used to social interaction.

After thinking the situation over, Canada finally spoke up, "Hey, Alfred?"

America looked over at Canada, "Yeah?"

"I need to go to the store to buy some fish. Do you think that you could watch my polar bear, and make sure that he doesn't get into anything?"

"Sure."

With that said, Canada began to head out of the house. Now completely bored, since his brother had left, America decided to bring all of his attention towards Kumajirou, as the bear seemed to still be interested in sniffing anything that he could. America figured that Kumajirou had probably never been in Russia's house before, so the polar bear must have been curious as a dog would be to explore the new area. Once the polar bear seemed to grow bored of sniffing around in the kitchen, he decided to bring his attention towards America. Then, the bear approached the young nation. America only continued to silently watch the bear, as the animal stood up on it's back legs, and rested his paws on the young nation's lap, "Where's that guy who always feeds me?"

America began to scratch the polar bear behind his ears, "Out getting you some fish."

While he was being scratched, Kumajirou tilted his head to one side. Eventually, once America decided that he'd given the bear a long enough scratch, he decided to pick the animal up and carry him into the living room, as he decided that the bear was beginning to look somewhat exhausted. Once he was in the living room, he found Russia still sitting on the couch, staring at a wall while deep in thought. Since it seemed as if Russia was in a better mood, he decided to ask, "Do you mind it Mattie's polar bear sleeps on the couch, or do you not like having animals on your furniture?"

Russia didn't avert his attention from the wall, "It's fine."

America set Kumajirou down on one of the cushions so that the polar bear would be able to curl up comfortably and fall asleep. After that, the young nation decided to sit next to Russia. At first, there was only yet another moment of silence before Russia decided to finally bring all of his attention towards America. He was still a bit upset from the conversation he had with Canada, but seeing that America appeared to be in a better mood than usual at that moment, and that he was much more healthy than when he'd literally found the nation half frozen, his mood was suddenly elated. Deciding that all he wanted at that moment was the young nation's company, Russia decided to pull America onto his lap, as he believed that cuddling with his love interest would only make him feel even more happy. When he was suddenly pulled from his spot on the couch and onto Russia's lap, America didn't seem to mind the action at all. Instead, the young nation assumed that Russia just wanted to cuddle, and so decided to rest his head against the older nation's shoulder. Russia couldn't help but smile when he felt the tip of America's cowlick tickle his cheek.

Eventually, after a while of cuddling America, Russia finally decided to ask, "You're not embarrassed about me telling you brother what happened, right? I would feel bad if you ended up regretting this."

"Well, I feel a little embarrassed," America explained, "but I don't really regret it as much as I thought I would. Mattie doesn't seem to be making a big deal about it, which I was afraid would happen. It sort of feels like a little bit of weight has been lifted off of my shoulders, you know?"

"Well, that's good to hear."

After that, the two nations continued to cuddle, and have short conversations, until Canada finally arrived home. Despite the fact that his brother found out about what was going on, America considered that day to be the best day he had in a while.


	11. Chapter 11

Unfortunately for America, it almost seemed as if he was being punished for having such an amazing day, as during the next day, he couldn't think of another time that he had felt so irritable; and for no reason at all too. Well, at least he knew one cause to how irritable he was feeling, and that was due to his extreme boredom, and how he seemed to lack any enthusiasm towards anything that could possibly provide him with some entertainment. Not even the idea of receiving a billion dollars, and being told that he could vacation anywhere he wanted for an entire year seemed to spark any exhilaration within him. He simply didn't understand why he was feeling this way, but he was sure that if he would ever be given such an opportunity, he would instead find the whole experience to be a waste a time, and that he wasn't worthy of such joy. The thought was even enough to embarrass him.

It was quiet that day. All America could stand doing was staring silently at a wall. Of course, Canada and Russia had tried to start a conversation with him, or asked him if he wanted to do something with them, but all they would receive in return for their efforts was a, "Would you just leave me alone?"

Eventually, Russia didn't seem to want to watch America sulk any longer, as he approached the young nation and asked, "Is there something bothering you, Fredka?"

America never averted his attention from the wall, "No."

"You've been sitting in that same spot all day. There must be something wrong."

"I'm just feeling a little bored, but it's not like that matters anyways, because I don't want to do anything."

"But it doesn't seem as if you even tried to entertain yourself."

America then suppressed a sigh of irritation, "Would you just go away? I really don't need this right now."

With that said, Russia decided to silently walk away from America. However, much to the young nations adversity, Russia almost immediately returned with some knitting supplies. He set the supplies down, and told America, "Why don't you start knitting? It helps me feel better."

"I have no idea how to knit," America retorted, "besides, why would I want to anyways? I'm not into that sort of thing."

Russia shrugged, "It wouldn't hurt to try it. Besides, I can teach you how to do it."

America let out a silent groan. Due to all of his stress, he almost felt as if he was about to a have aneurysm. Therefore, he decided to massage his temples to try and stop a headache that he was sure he was about to have, and begged, "Please, I really don't want to do this right now."

Russia sat down next to America, and asked, "Fredka, are you sure you're feeling okay? You're acting as if you're having a migraine. Am I really bothering you that much? I'm sorry if I am. I just really want to help you, but if you really want to be alone this badly, I'll leave."

"It's not you, Russia. I don't even know what it is."

After receiving this response, Russia decided to pull America into a hug. As much as he wanted to, America refused to speak out against the affection. He decided that it would at least be best for him to try and convince himself that the comfort should at least be making him feel better. After all, the thought of being immune to the one thing that had really been helping him out during the past few weeks was rather unpleasant. Therefore, he tried his best to relax in Russia's arms, but the older nation seemed to notice that America was only becoming more tense. He decided to see if stroking the young nation's hair would calm him, but this only seemed to cause America to furrow his eyebrows in frustration; as if trying to focus on not lashing out was the only thing preventing America from losing it. At this, Russia immediately decided that it would be best to stop what he was doing, and spoke in a low and cautious voice in hopes of preventing America from becoming more stressed, "Fredka, please just try to take some deep breaths. You're not breathing properly right now."

Russia freed America from his hug, as he believed that the embrace only seemed to cause the young nation even more stress. Then, Russia made sure that he was making eye contact with America, as he thought that that would be one of the best ways to give his love interest some reassurance. After that, he gently held America's hands in his own, and repeated his earlier request, "Come on, just do it, Amerika. Once you have your breathing under control, you'll feel much better. I promise."

Despite the fact that America really wasn't making any noise while breathing, or hyperventilating, his breaths were still shallow, fast, and irregular; the type of breathing that some people would do if they were on the verge of having a huge emotional break down due to an extreme amount of stress, and they were trying to keep themselves from losing it. The fact that Russia needed to reassure him the way that he currently was only made America feel ridiculous. However, despite the fact that everything else that Russia tried seemed to fail, America did find the other nation's current strategy to be quite effective. Eventually, he was relieved of some of his stress, and his breathing had returned to normal.

Russia, on the other hand, couldn't help but wonder what could possibly be making America feel so stressed. It wasn't as if the young nation had much work to do, and no one was pressuring him to make a life changing decision. He wanted to look into this, to see if it had something to do with the young nation's depression. However, he didn't think that it would be wise to interrogate America, now that the nation seemed to have relaxed a bit from his previous state. He simply didn't want to stress America out again. Perhaps he could ask Canada if he knew anything about what was going on in America's mind at the moment, and what the best way to handle such a situation would be.

Only a small amount of irritation remained, yet despite the empty feeling that seemed to accompany his unexplained stress, he felt as if would be able to tolerate doing something, rather than find any possible form of entertainment to be a waste of time. Seeing that America seemed to be much more calm, Russia decided that it would be safe to ask, "Would you like to try and knit now? It might help you get rid of anymore stress that you might have."

Since America could no longer stand the idea of spending the rest of his day doing absolutely nothing, he decided to reply to Russia's request, "Fine, I guess I will."

With that said, Russia grabbed two knitting needles and handed them to America. Then he retrieved some lavender yarn, and instructed, "First, you need to make a slip knot and put it on the needle."

"Alright," America said in response, and tried his best to make a slip knot out of the yarn. At first, he thought that he was doing it correctly (although, it had been a while since he made one). However, it didn't seem as if Russia thought that he was doing it properly, as he grabbed the needle that America was trying to apply his attempt at a slip knot on, and told him, "Nyet, like this."

America watched Russia carefully as he removed the yarn from the needle, and looped it into an actual slip knot. Then, after that, he showed the young nation a demonstration on how the complete the first row of knots. After looping the yarn around the needle a few times, he gave the tool and the yarn back to America, and inquired, "Here, why don't you try and finish that first row?"

America complied, and found the task to be rather easy, and somewhat enjoyable. For once in his life, he thought that he'd found a skill that he was natural at. At that moment, he couldn't really recall another time where he seemed to learn how to do something right away. That was until he was finally finishing knitting the first row of what he assumed was going to be a scarf, and it was time to start another row on knots. It was also when Russia decided to bring the second needle into the process, while he explained to America how to start a second row. All America could interpret from the demonstration was a confusing mess of two needles somehow creating a coherent pattern out of the yarn. When Russia returned the two needles to America to see if he would be able to start another row, America was immediately stopped, "You're not doing it correctly."

With a grumble of annoyance, America handed the two needles back to Russia, so that the grey haired nation would be able to show him how to start a second row again. This continued on for what seemed to America to be the most irksome fifteen minutes of his life. Even Russia seemed to be becoming somewhat irritated by the young nation's inability to learn what he deemed to be a rather simple skill. Right after seeming to have messed up again, America snapped, "What the hell am I supposed to do!?"

Looking shocked by the sudden outburst, Russia decided to put the knitting supplies away with a sigh, and explained, "Maybe we should try this again later. You seem to be much too stressed right now."

However, this didn't seem to come as a reassurance to America, as he continued to yell at Russia, "I just just don't understand why you couldn't leave me alone! It was so obvious that I didn't want you around, but it's like you don't want to listen to me!"

Feeling as if he didn't deserve to be reviled just for trying to help, and for not understanding what America wanted when the other nation was doing a horrible job of communicating, Russia suppressed yet another sigh at America's temper, and tried to ease the tension, "Amerika-"

"I bet that you just think I'm full of it right now! I know that you're ignoring what I'm saying on purpose, and I don't like it!"

"Amerika-"

"Go ahead, why don't you just tell my brother how much of an idiot I am for feeling this way!? It's not like you cared when you invaded my personal space not too long ago, so why would you care if my brother found out that I'm upset over 'nothing'!?"

"That's enough, Fredka!"

It appeared that America was both surprised and angry with Russia for yelling at him, as he finally stopped nagging the other nation, but he was still not afraid to glare at him. Russia, on the other hand, did not at all appreciate the fact that America was still giving him an attitude, as he told the young nation in a rather harsh manner, "Look, I'm willing to put up with you venting, or simply being irritated. I can't stop you from needing to vent once and a while, and I can't always prevent you from feeling moody, but I refuse to put up with you taking all of your anger out on me when all I'm trying to do is help you! I understand that I might have been a little forceful about being around you, and I'm sorry about that, but-"

Russia suddenly stopped, as if he was trying to come up with what to say next, "Look, this is just really frustrating. You've already shown me in the past that when you act stubborn, you have a problem that you're trying to hide from me. Almost as if you wanted someone to pay attention when you tried to push them away. Or maybe I interpreted that all wrong. Can you just be more clear when you're trying to communicate with me?"

When America suddenly turned away from him, Russia couldn't help but feel as if he failed miserably trying to make America understand what he was trying to say. He wasn't even sure if America cared about what he just said, or became extremely offended or confused by his words. Russia suddenly seemed to find interest in the carpet, as he continued to analyze what he just told America, wondering if the nation could ever hope to understand what he said. He obviously didn't think the young nation was stupid, but rather that he was the one that was a hypocritical idiot for possibly not doing a great job at communicating his thoughts.

America, on the other hand, seemed to suddenly be deep in thought with what Russia had just told him. He tried to deny it in the past, since he didn't even want to think that he could possibly be an attention seeker, but America couldn't help but realize that he really did want someone to try and figure out what was bothering him when he was trying to avoid social interaction. Realizing this, of course, only made him feel all the more ridiculous. He also couldn't help but notice just how confusing his actions truly were. It was almost as if he had expected poor Russia to read his mind.

Russia continued to sit there as he waited to rid himself of any anger or guilt in case America wanted to try and make a friendly approach towards him. It seemed as if America had been sulking for ten minutes before he finally turned around to face Russia with tears threatening to fall from his eyes. It seemed as if America was trying his best to stop his tears from spilling, and fight the tightness in his throat as he said, "I'm sorry, Russia. I'm such an idiot, aren't I?"

Russia's voice was soft, as he explained, "Nyet, you're not an idiot."

"Of course I am. Only an idiot would treat you horribly after all you did for me."

Since it didn't seem as if America was going to stop tearing himself a part anytime soon, Russia decided to pull him into a gentle embrace, and explained, "Fredka, I already forgive you. You owned up for what you did, so you don't need to feel horrible about it."

A few tears fell from America's eyes as Russia added, "Now please stop saying horrible things about yourself. I hate seeing you do that because you don't deserve to feel so horrible about yourself."

America removed his glasses so that he could try and rid his face of the tears; perhaps even prevent more from spilling, but Russia's comforting words only seemed to make him want to cry even more. Therefore, he gave up on trying to stop himself from crying, set his glasses down on the coffee table, and buried his face into Russia's shoulder. Russia decided to start stroking America's hair, and whispered soothing Russian phrases to him as the young nation cried.

What seemed to be an eternity of this passed before Canada entered the room and asked, "Uh, is everything okay here?"

"Don't worry," Russia told Canada, "I have it under control."

"Well, do you think you'll need my help with anything?"

"Not right now, but I'll tell you if I do."

"Alright, I guess I'll just leave you two alone then."

With that said, Canada left.

By the time America was finally done crying, Russia decided to ask, "So what's been making you so miserable today?"

"I don't really know how to explain it," America started, exhaustion from crying obvious in his voice, "I've just been feeling really stressed today. I feel like there's no point in doing anything, for whatever reason. It's just so confusing."

There was a pause, before Russia finally stated, "I remember feeling the same way quite a few times. I guess it just happens sometimes. Just remember that these phases don't last forever. It will make them less dreadful, and maybe even snap you out of a few of them immediately."

"Well, I'm glad that I don't feel that way anymore. I just hope I never feel that way ever again."

America tried his best to snuggle even closer to Russia. However, no amount of the other nation's warmth seemed to be enough to protect America from the chills. Deciding that his attempt to absorb warmth from Russia was futile, he stated, "It's really cold in here right now."

Now noticing that America was shivering rather violently in his arms, and the fact that he himself didn't feel cold, he decided to rest the back of his hand on America's forehead before saying, "Well, you definitely don't seem to be running a fever. I'll go get you some blankets."

As soon as Russia stood up to leave, he felt America grab his arm in an attempt to keep him from leaving the room. Russia gently freed himself from the young nation's grasp, and explained, "Don't worry, I won't be gone for long."

For what seemed to only be a few seconds, Russia returned with a couple of blanket. Once he was at the couch, he wrapped the blankets around America before pulling him into another hug, so that the young nation would be able to rest against his body. Russia continued to sit there, and play with America's soft hair even long after the other nation had fallen asleep. Eventually, Russia decided that it would probably be best if he started preparing something for dinner, so he decided to lay America down on the couch, and plant a kiss on his forehead before heading off to the kitchen.

However, he stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he saw Canada giving him an expression that seemed to show that he didn't quite know how to react to what he just saw. After a long, awkward silence, Russia gave him an embarrassed smile before saying, "Oh, hey Matvey. I didn't even notice you walk into this room."

Canada still silently stared at him. Another long silence increased the tensions between them as Russia began to panic somewhat, "Please don't be mad. I promise, I didn't do anything to America that was worse than an innocent kiss on the forehead."

At last, Canada spoke, "I'm not really sure if it would be right to keep that a secret from my brother."

At first, Russia had no idea how to respond to that statement. Then, the perfect argument hit him. He knew that it wasn't ethical, but he didn't really see any other way out of the situation, "Are you sure it would be a good idea to tell him? After all, I have been alone with him for a few weeks, and it's obvious that I haven't done anything horrible to him. Besides, it was only a kiss on the forehead. Do you really want him to start feeling awkward around me over something so innocent, when there's no way it could cause him any harm?"

At this, Canada began to look conflicted. After a moment of thought, he finally said in response, "I guess not."

"So, do you promise not to tell him?"

"As long as you promise not to do anything more without his consent."

"Matvey," Canada couldn't help but feel a bit guilty when a look of hurt appeared on Russia's face, yet he continued stay firm, "Why would I ever want to do something like that to him?"

Canada studied Russia for a few moments before finally saying, "Alright, I trust you. Well, I hate to seem intrusive, but what exactly do you love about my brother? Not that it really matters. Just curious."

Then, a blush suddenly spread across Russia's face, "I'm not sure if I can list off all of the things I love about him. I'm not even sure if I've figured out everything I love about him."

"Well, do you think you can at least summaries what you like about him?"

Russia looked away shyly as he began, "He's cute, he's caring, I love his cowlick, he can sometimes be really funny-"

It seemed as if listing off the reasons why he loved America was already becoming too much for Russia to handle, as he suddenly stood up and changed the subject before leaving the room, "I have to go make dinner now."

Canada sighed at this as he thought, Well, at least he doesn't only love him for his looks. That's a good sign.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've tried knitting a few times, and I still have no idea how to do it. I probably didn't even use the right terms while describing it.


	12. Chapter 12

Whatever seemed to be causing America to be so irritable didn't seem to be bugging him anymore. Which, of course, came to Russia as a huge relief the next day, since it didn't seem as if the young nation was even close to figuring out what was causing him so much stress. Although, Russia could take a guess at what was making America so miserable; it seemed as if he was immediately better after taking a nap for a couple of hours, America was feeling much better. Therefore, he figured that America must have been feeling drained of his energy due to a lack of sleep. This must have meant that America didn't sleep too well that night, since Russia was sure that his comrade had around nine hours of sleep. As much as Russia didn't enjoy the idea of America having trouble sleeping, he still appreciated the fact that during the current day, the young nation appeared to be in a much better mood than he was the day before.

As much as he wanted to continue to teach America how to knit, Russia didn't want to risk ruining his mood. It was after he decided to give up on teaching America how to knit, at that point and time anyways, that he remembered that knitting wasn't an easy skill to learn. Especially from watching another person. For a beginner, America actually seemed to be doing a wonderful job of learning how to knit; he did seem to have a bit of an idea of what he was doing, despite his failures. Russia himself had some trouble his first time casting the first stitches onto the needle in order to start the scarf he'd been knitting off. His stitches were much too tight, and someone had to point that out to him before the scarf he was knitting turned into a mess of knots.

Instead, Russia just wanted to try doing something simple with America. Perhaps then the young nation would be able to build a bit of confidence from completing the simple activity so that later on he would be more willing to try something more complicated. Besides, America had been complaining about being bored as soon as he recovered from his sickness, and since the other nation didn't seem to be the type who enjoyed doing activities that would usually be done on his own, such as reading, it almost seemed as if the poor nation was going to die of boredom in Russia's house. After all, Russia had become so used to living alone that he only seemed to have sources of entertainment that an individual could only do on their own could enjoy.

Besides, spending some quality time with America would most certainly help the young nation bond with him. Even though their relationship seemed to improve quite a bit since Russia first started helping America. Russia even thought that it was safe to consider America a friend, since he did seem to act much more caring towards the older nation once he found out that Russia had some things that had happened in his past that he'd rather forget about. As much as he appreciated America being understanding enough to not try and pressure Russia into telling him every single horrible thing that happened to him, and only had him share what he was comfortable with sharing, Russia still felt as if the way he went about explaining it was a bit disappointing. He'd only told him a few things before breaking down, even though there had been so many memories haunting his mind and clouding up his ability to think. Even though it felt to Russia as if he was focusing on a life time's worth of pain and suffering, he had a feeling that if anyone that wasn't as understanding as America was during that time, and witnessed him crying over what he'd said, would probably think he was full of it. Which only made him feel as if he truly was full of it.

Perhaps he even made America a bit disappointed in him with the 'lousy' explanation. Russia was sure that America would probably want to know more about what went on in his past, and it wasn't as if Russia was going to keep it from him forever. As soon as he gained the confidence to do so, he would tell America a few of the dark secrets he always told himself to forget about. After all, America was explaining everything that was going on with him, therefore, Russia thought that it would only be fair to share more touchy secrets with America, since what he'd already told him didn't seem to be a fair amount of information.

Once everyone was finished eating their lunch, Russia decided to ask America after taking care of a few dishes, "Do you want to try and bake something with me today?"

There was a look of uncertainty on America's face before he answered, "No, not really. I'm not very good at cooking, and I might mess everything up. Even if you do plan on helping me."

"Fredka, I'm sure you'll do fine," Russia stated in a reassuring tone, although it was almost as if he thought that America should have had more confidence in his ability to cook, "If you're really so afraid of messing up, we'll just bake something very simple."

It was obvious that America still seemed to be a bit uncertain about Russia's suggestion as he began to think his situation over. He did, however, consider the fact that he'd been rather bored during the time that he was being taken care of by Russia. He knew for sure that a part of that was because of his depression. Other than that, Russia simply didn't have anything in his house that seemed entertaining, or so, that was what America assumed, "Well, alright. There's not really anything else to do anyways."

Russia looked delighted at this response, "Why don't we make some cookies then? I know for sure that no one can mess up on cookies. Or at least, most people can't mess up on them..."

After adding in the last statement after a moment of hesitation, Russia studied America's to see if the young nation was offended. After all, it wouldn't have been too hard for America to figure out who he was referring to. Fortunately, he was immediately reassured when he noticed that America seemed to be giving him this 'I know who you're talking about, and I agree with you' look. Therefore, Russia decided to continue, "Also, I'm very sure that you've made cookies multiple times in your life, so I highly doubt that you're going to mess up."

After that was said, Russia began to grab some ingredients from the cupboard and set them down on the kitchen table. At first, everything seemed to be going smoothly. Russia had only asked for America to measure and add in the ingredients that he could actually read in Russian. He didn't want to admit it to Russia, but he wasn't able to read half of the words on some of the ingredient's containers. It was when Russia asked him to add in some baking soda that a problem began to arise. He knew that it probably should have been obvious based on how the container looked, but at the same time, he didn't want to mess up. Well, it had been a while since he actually made something from scratch. He knew what a box of baking soda looked like, at least, he knew what appearance they had in his own country. What America was worried about was whether or not Russia had accidentally brought out an ingredient that they didn't actually need, and that it would throw him off. He couldn't help but feel even more awkward as time passed. Something told him that he was becoming paranoid over nothing, and that he was overthinking a simple task. This only caused him to think that Russia thought that there was something wrong with him at that moment, as the other nation asked while adding in some vanilla extract to the soon to be cookie dough, "Is there something wrong, Fredka?"

America shook his head no in response as more paranoid thoughts continued to cloud his ability to think properly. It was almost to the point where America wanted to leave the kitchen, and hide from the rest of the world for being an 'idiot'. Eventually, he heard Russia let out a sigh, and soon enough, a box was lifted off the table and shown to America, "This is the baking soda."

America glanced around at the other ingredients, only to become even more embarrassed when he realized that there was literally no other container that could've been mistaken for the one that held baking soda. Not daring to meet Russia's eyes, as he didn't think that he would be able to anyways, all America said in response was a quiet, "Oh."

Since Russia could tell that America must have been feeling extremely insecure at the moment, he decided to set the box of baking soda down and ask the young nation, "Are you sure that there isn't anything wrong?"

America turned his head away from Russia as the other nation tried to make eye contact with him (Russia would have wanted to tilt America's head towards him, but the cookie dough was almost ready, and he really wasn't a fan of constantly washing his hands in the middle of cooking something when having to do so could have been avoided). Russia could immediately tell that America was lying, as his light brown eyebrows were furrowed in a way that made him look out right furious, rather than just a bit annoyed as he replied, "Of course there isn't anything wrong."

"Are you upset because you weren't able to figure out where the baking soda was? If so, you shouldn't feel ashamed of that. You probably never learned how to read that word in Russian."

"Yeah, but it should've been obvious. It looks a lot different from the other ingredients, and yet I still wasn't able to figure it out!"

For a moment, Russia tried to think of the best way to reassure America before finally explaining, "I think you were just overthinking everything when I told you to get some baking soda. I don't think you're an idiot. Besides, I think I understand why you might have been overthinking that simple task. You seem to be afraid of messing up. You don't have to feel that way about anything, Fredka. Just please try to loosen up. I promise that you'll be less likely to mess up if you aren't stressed out all of the time."

America was now glaring at Russia as he stated, "But you don't seem to have any problem speaking English. You probably don't struggle on any other language you know either. I just don't get why I always have to be the stupidest person in the room whenever I'm with other people."

"Fredka, I keep telling you that you're not stupid. Please, stop saying that you are. There are people in this world who would probably be jealous of you for the fact that you can speak multiple languages at all. Even if you're only fluent in one. If it really bothers you this much, I can help you learn more of my language. Also, I'm not fluent in every language I know. I'm so terrible at speaking some languages that I am supposed to know fluently, that no one can understand me, and I can't understand the people that speak those languages. There, now you know that I am not as smart as you thought I was."

Despite the fact that America still felt as if he was inferior to Russia, the words did help him sort of realize that he was assuming that the other nation was perfect, and that he himself should be too. The realization sort of made him feel a bit ridiculous, as it was obvious that Russia had his flaws, and that America was being much too cruel to himself when he was expecting himself to be undeniably perfect.

Even if he did feel as if he would have to try harder than everyone else to be worth anything, because he thought he was the most disgraceful thing on the planet, a part of him was becoming convinced that he should have felt as if he already was good enough just the way he was. After all, both Russia and Canada seemed to care about him quite a bit. Despite the fact that he annoyed his brother sometimes, and perhaps had been a bit of a bully towards him quite a few times in the past (he really was starting to regret that), he'd never seen his brother act happier around anyone else other than him. Russia also seemed to be quite forgiving towards America. They did have quite the fight during the past century, and in the present day, Russia seemed to be treating America as if he was the most important thing in the world to him. However, America didn't quite seem to understand why Russia suddenly seemed to care about him so much. He wasn't ready to question that though. He enjoyed being around Russia much more when he was friendly.

Noticing that America no longer seemed to be angry with himself, Russia decided to hand America a bag of chocolate chips, and asked him, "Would you like to poor in the chocolate chips?"

America smiled at the offer, since this happened to be his favorite thing to do while making chocolate chip cookies, and answered, "Of course I would."

Once the cookie dough was made, and rolled up into balls and put on baking sheet to be placed in the oven, America and Russia decided to hang out in the living room as they waited for the cookies to bake. After America was settled on the couch, Russia left the room for a moment; only to return with two books. He set the books down on the coffee table as he explained, "I brought you a simple, if you want to read it. Along with a dictionary. I'm sure that you'll learn a few words and get a better understanding of sentence structure in my language if you read a chapter of this book. I still need to do some cleaning in the kitchen, so why don't you read this for a while?"

Right as Russia began to leave, America decided to pick up the book and examine the title, before opening it up in order to start reading the first paragraph. The task seemed to be rather easy, so he continued to read on, until he felt something tickle his hand. America decided to close the book to investigate what was tickling his hand, and immediately threw the book on the ground when he saw that it was a spider. He immediately tried to brush the spider off as quickly as possible, since throwing the book did nothing to rid himself of the spider. Meanwhile, his brother, who happened to be busy with stroking his polar bear at that moment, gave him a look of disapproval, and scolded him, "You shouldn't have thrown that book, Alfred. I know for a fact that you can be more mature than that. Besides, I don't think Russia would be very happy with you if you ended up damaging that book."

"I don't care!" America exclaimed, making sure that his legs were up on the couch, so that the spider that was now on the floor couldn't crawl on them, "There was a spider on that book!"

Canada rolled his eyes at this response, "Oh for crying out loud, Alfred. It's just a spider! It can't harm you."

"What's going on here?"

Both Canada and America jumped when they heard Russia suddenly speak. Once Canada quickly recovered from his shock, however, he immediately began to explain in a casual tone, "He's just freaked out over a spider that happened to be on your book. That's all."

"You're afraid of spiders?" Russia asked, smiling with adoration at the sight of America acting frightened over a tiny bug. Despite the fact that spiders were extremely easy to take care of, he still enjoyed the idea of protecting America from them, just for the sake of having the young nation rely on him. Besides, now he knew the best way to playfully tease America whenever he was in the mood to do so.

Not even America's frantic request could destroy the fantasy that was beginning to form in Russia's head, "I don't care! Just kill it already!"

At this, Russia finally decide to start searching the ground, as that was where America was pointing, in order to find the spider. Since the carpet in his living room was an off white, it wasn't too difficult for him to find the brown spider skittering away from where the book lay (as humorous and cute as he found America to be at that moment, he wasn't too happy to see that it looked as if his book had been thrown on the floor, but appreciated the fact that none of the pages seemed to be bent). As soon as he spotted the spider, Russia crouched so that he could try and let the spider crawl onto his hand. At first, the spider seem to be too scared to go onto his hand, but eventually, he seemed to be able to flatten it in a way that seemed to make the spider think that he wasn't going to crush it, and eventually crawled onto his hand.

Then Russia left the room, only to return about a minute later to find America asking, "Did you at least let it outside?"

"Of course I didn't," Russia began, "It would've froze to death if I did."

"So what? It's a stupid spider! It deserves to die!"

Russia sighed at this, picked up the book, and handed it to America, "The spider wasn't trying to scare you, he just wanted to hang around. Now, can you please not throw my books on the ground?"

America was now glaring at Russia, as he grabbed the book, but only to set it on the coffee table as he stated, "I don't even think that I want to read that now."

"Oh come on, Fredka. Don't tell me that you're really this upset over a spider."

America turned away from Russia and crossed his arms, clearly trying his best to ignore whatever the other nation was saying. He knew it was cruel, but Russia couldn't help but smile with even more adoration at this behavior. Therefore, he decided to approach America, and make a crawling motion with his hand up his back; pretending that his hand was in fact a spider. This caused America to cringe. Therefore, he decided to do the same thing with both of his hands at the same time, and instead of bringing his hand away from America as soon as he reach the top of his shoulder, he decided to have his fingers gently squeeze the back of his neck, causing the young nation to nearly jump, and instinctively try to hide his neck. After Russia tried to tickle him a few more times, America turned so that his back was no longer exposed, and snapped, "Stop it!"

It was then that Canada decided to speak up, "Russia, please stop doing that. He doesn't like it."

After being scolded by Canada, Russia decided that it would be best not to annoy America anymore, as the young nation looked absolutely furious. Instead, he decided to sit down on the couch next to America, and pull him into a hug as he said in a soft voice, "I'm sorry, Amerika. I promise that none of the spiders in my house are poisonous."

This caused America to bristle, not that it wasn't already horrible enough for him that he becoming irritated and embarrassed by the fact that his brother was still in the room while he was being hugged, "Can you please stop it with the stupid spiders?"

"Alright, I'll stop."

America glanced over at his brother to see if he was watching, and much to his horror, he was. Although, there seemed to be some sympathy on his face, which sort of gave America some reassurance. Immediately, he decided to give his brother this 'please leave, this is becoming too awkward for me' expression. Not that America couldn't just push himself away from Russia. He just wasn't fond of the idea of doing so, since the other nation was only trying to make up for what he did, and well, was acting as affectionately as he always seemed to around America. Also, he felt as if he'd already made enough of a scene with the whole spider situation. He didn't want to cause anymore trouble.

Fortunately, Canada seemed to have immediately taken the hint, as he left the room as quickly as he could without seeming too awkward. After what seemed to be a few minutes without Canada's presence, America felt as if he could finally relax somewhat. However, he still couldn't help but still be a bit irritated as he thought, What's up with this guy always wanting to hug me lately anyways? Alright, obviously it's because he feels bad for me, but I swear that no one else in the world is this cuddly. Does he even have any self awareness?

It didn't take too much longer for Russia to free America of the embrace. Then, he stood up and told America, "I need to start cleaning the kitchen now. Why don't you start reading again?"

Eventually, after a while of finally being alone (well, he knew that his fellow nations were still nearby, and would probably come to check on him once in a while, but he still counted that as alone time) he was finally able to rid himself of the irritation he had due to Russia's overly affectionate behavior. He knew for sure that it wasn't the worst thing that could've happened to him. I guess I should just be glad that he's like this around me. He could've kicked me out of his house a long time ago, like I thought that he was going to, America thought.

At last, the evening finally came, and this time after dinner, America didn't feel as if he was going to burst, but instead was comfortably full. The type of full that gave someone a warm feeling in their stomach, as if they were the most loved person on the planet. After having a long conversation with his brother, over the exciting things that seemed to be going on in his life, America couldn't help but be a bit disappointed when his brother suddenly grew too drowsy to want to stay awake, and decided to go to bed. Not that he could really blame him, though. After all, Canada had eaten quite a bit himself, so having a full stomach must have made him tired.

Therefore, he decided to spend some time with Russia, who currently seemed to be wide awake. The other nation was busy with finishing up a scarf he'd been knitting for a while. America decided to sit next to Russia and ask, "So, how's the scarf doing?"

"Pretty well, actually," Russia relied, "I thought that it was going to end up being crooked, but fortunately that didn't end up happening."

After adding a few more stitches to the scarf, Russia grabbed a pair of scissors, and cut the yarn, before observing the now finished scarf. The scarf didn't seem to be too complex. There was no distinct pattern on it, other than the stitches, of course. It was all one solid color; dark red. After deciding for sure that there were no major flaws in the finished scarf, Russia asked, "Can I see how this looks on you?"

Despite the fact that America's self esteem had gone up since Russia began to take care of him, he was still shocked by the request. He didn't think that anyone would want to see how something looked on him. Instead, he thought that anyone would've cringed at the thought of testing the appearance of an article of clothing on him. Once he was over his shock, America finally replied, "Sure."

At this, Russia began to wrap the scarf around America's neck. After adjusting the scarf the way he thought looked best on America, he observed how it seemed to compliment his blue eyes. With a smile now on his face, Russia told America, "Since this looks very nice on you, you can keep it."

"Thanks."

After that, things seemed to have grown quiet, until America decided to break the silence with a conversation. This lasted for a while, until Russia seemed to grow drowsy, and started making half-hearted one word responses instead of putting effort into his replies as he had before. After a while of this, America grew agitated, and asked, "Are you even listening to me?"

"I'm sorry, Fredka," Russia replied, "I'm just feeling really tired right now."

"Well, do you think you could at least try to stay up a bit longer? I don't really have anything else to do."

"I'll try."

America tried to keep there conversation going, but when Russia didn't respond to one of his questions after he repeated it a few times, and had his eyes closed, the young nation realized that he'd already fallen asleep. America decided to start trying to shake Russia awake, and almost yelled, "Hey, wake up!"

Russia furrowed his eyebrows with annoyance as he groaned out something in Russian that America could only decipher as something along the lines of 'sleep' and 'now'. However, America was persistent in keeping the Russian awake, and continued to shake him. Eventually, Russia was sitting up straight, looking irritated and exhausted. America ignored this, and asked, "How can you suddenly be this tired? You seemed to be wide awake only ten minutes ago!"

"I don't know," was all Russia said in response, as he closed his eyes once more, "Just please, let me sleep now."

"But-"

Before America knew it, he was being pulled into Russia's arms, and laid down. At first, America didn't know how to react to this, since it was so random. Perhaps it was just Russia's way of trying to make America fall asleep so that he would stop pestering him. After all, the young nation's arms were now pinned to his sides. Either that, or Russia was too tired to even remember what was happening at that moment, and decided to cuddle America before falling asleep (America could tell just by his breathing that he'd already fallen asleep a second time).

Whatever the case happened to be, America wanted to be freed from Russia's hold immediately. However, his struggling only seemed to cause Russia to tighten his arms around the young nation. Fortunately, however, he was able to free his arms from Russia's grasp. This didn't stop Russia from keeping him in a tight hug, though. Eventually, America decided to give up on trying to free himself. Since it seemed as if he was going to be stuck sleeping with Russia. Therefore, he decided to remove the scarf, and his glasses, and set them on the coffee table.

Eventually, the warmth began to make him grow drowsy. As he snuggled a little closer to Russia, he thought, I guess this isn't so bad. I just hope that Mattie doesn't say anything if he ends up seeing this.


	13. Chapter 13

Russia awoke the next morning to the feeling of something nudging his arm. However, he decided to ignore this feeling, as he kept his eyes closed in an attempt to fall back asleep. When the nudging consisted, Russia tightened his arms around around whatever he was holding, so that what ever was pestering him would no longer be able move his arm. His eyebrows were furrowed with annoyance; in a way that clearly stated that it wouldn't be wise to bother him any more than he already was. Not that whatever was disturbing him from his once peaceful sleep seemed to really care for the warning sign, as it crawled up to his shoulder and began to bat at his face as it whined, "Hungry!"

Russia groaned, and lazily pushed the fluffy creature away from him before beginning yet another attempt at falling asleep. What ever seemed to want to pester him at that moment only grew more determined, as it crawled back onto his shoulder and whined in a much louder voice, "Hungry!"

Then, Russia heard someone enter the room, and felt the creature being lifted off of him. Then, he heard a voice scold, "Let them sleep, Kumajiki."

Once Russia was freed of the disturbance, he attempted to fall asleep once more. However, after five minutes of laying their with his eyes closed, he began to suddenly feel wide awake. Therefore, he decided to open his eyes, and couldn't help but be pleasantly surprised to find America sleeping peacefully right next to him. Not wanting to leave the couch, due to how warm America felt, he instead decided to start stroking the young nations hair and snuggle closer to him.

Despite the touch, America remained sound asleep for quite a while, before slowly opening his eyes. His vision was blurry, due to him not wearing his glasses, but more so than usual, since he was feeling especially tired that morning. Therefore, he decided to close his eyes once more, and snuggle against whoever was stroking his hair as a small smile grew on his face. His mind went blank, as the touch began to help him drift off so that all he could focus on a pleasant nothingness.

Unfortunately, the relaxing moment didn't seem to last too much longer, as a sudden realization struck America. He immediately opened his eyes wide, and shot up; Russia's embrace doing absolutely nothing to keep him down. By the time America was sitting up, he heard Russia ask him, "Are you okay, Fredka?"

After taking a moment to observe both himself and Russia, America couldn't help but suddenly feel embarrassed when he realized that, well, what he thought had happened between the two of them didn't actually happen. Although, despite his embarrassment, he did feel quite relieved, as he would not at all be okay with having whatever he thought had happened become his reality, "Yes, I'm fine."

As soon as Russia detected a sweet aroma floating through the air, he decided to tell America, "I think your brother decided to cook something for breakfast this morning. Why don't we go to the kitchen? It seems as if it's almost ready."

Upon hearing this, and smelling the food, America began to notice just how empty his stomach truly seemed to be. Therefore, he immediately put on his glasses, and followed Russia into the kitchen. Once the two nations entered the room, they both couldn't help but be pleasantly surprised to find a small stack of pancakes sitting on a plate.

It didn't seem to take Canada to long to realize that America and Russia had entered the room, as he almost immediately turned to face them. America noticed that his brother seemed to immediately start blushing with embarrassment, once he was over his moment of shock, and it almost seemed as if he was trying to shrink away as he began to explained to Russia, "I'm sorry I didn't ask if I was allowed to cook, but I thought you might have wanted someone else to cook breakfast for once. You always do seem to get stuck cooking all of the meals."

"It's fine, Matvey. I don't think that you're the type that would start a fire, and I'm sure that you can figure out what ingredients I would be okay with you using, and which ones are off limits," Russia explained, before adding, "It's been a while since someone cooked something for me. I really appreciate it."

America couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of jealousy while he listened to Russia compliment his brother. He couldn't remember anyone ever telling him that he was capable of figuring out whether or not he was allowed to use something on his own, or believe that he had the common sense to know. Instead, he was often criticized for supposedly not being able to figure anything out on his own, or lacking common sense. He especially hated how he was literally incapable of proving that their claims were all wrong, as whenever America attempted to prove that he did have a brain, and wasn't just some breathing, warm body, he always managed to fail in the most humiliating way possible. What he hated most about this was the fact that even he himself would begin to think that he was stupid after his attempts. He hated how he slowly began to become a mess of envy whenever a fellow nation was complimented for something. It wasn't as if America wanted all of that negativity to eat away at him.

America flinched when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Then, after a moment of wondering why anyone would want to talk to him, he turned to face Russia as the other nation asked him in a whisper, "What's wrong?"

As America replied, Russia once again had the pleasure of watching the young nation's eyebrows furrow in the most exaggerated way he thought was humanly possible (as much as Russia loved to see America's prepossessing, light brown eyebrows furrow, he found it more adorable when they would only shift slightly, as they naturally would when he was only slightly irritated. It didn't take Russia too long to figure out that America was only trying to push him away when he lied about his emotions, and that doing so only seemed to make him feel worse. He eventually realized that when America did this, he really just needed someone to comfort him), "Why does it matter?"

Russia checked to see if Canada heard America's louder-than-needed-to-be response. Fortunately, it didn't seem so. Therefore, Russia decided to lower is own voice a bit more, in hopes that it would help America lower his as well; not that it seemed as if America was trying to be loud, but it only seemed as if he didn't realize that his whispering was too loud, "Why don't we talk about this outside of the kitchen?"

America complied; following Russia out of the kitchen and into the living room. Once there, Russia began to speak in a slightly louder voice, but of course, it was soft, "Can you please tell me what's bothering you?"

America glimpsed into Russia's eyes; only to feel guilty when he realized that Russia looked a bit remorseful. As Russia was unable to think of anything he could've said or done that day that could've possibly be considered hurtful, he still held the suspicion that he said something wrong. Eventually, the guilt caused America to give in and somewhat explain what was going on, as he didn't want Russia to feel horrible over him being upset, "It's not your fault. I just couldn't help but suddenly feel like I'm inferior to everyone."

"You're not inferior to anyone. Did I accidentally say something to make you feel that way, or were you thinking about something that happened?"

America didn't respond. Instead, he decided to turn his head away from Russia, as he couldn't help but suddenly feel ridiculous about the entire situation. He wasn't really sure if it would be such a great idea to share what was going on in his mind with Russia. Sure, the other nation had been acting quite understanding towards his problems, but what if he wouldn't be willing to take this one seriously?

Russia frowned at the silence he received in response for his attempt to help America. Yet, he tried not to be too forceful, as he asked the young nation, "Please, Fredka. Can you just tell me what's bothering you? I'm not going to minimize your problem, if that's what you're afraid of me doing. All I want to do is help you. I hate seeing you like this."

America spent a moment absorbing what Russia had just told him. Although he was sure that Russia wasn't trying to guilt trip him, he still couldn't help but suddenly feel even more guilty about the worry in Russia's voice. Therefore, America finally gave in and provided Russia with a valid explanation; much better than the last one he gave, "When you complimented Mattie, I couldn't help but suddenly become jealous. No one's ever told me that they can trust me with anything, or at least, not from what I can remember. Even though people don't always notice my brother, they seem to love and appreciate him a lot more than me. Maybe it doesn't sound like such a big deal, and I hate myself for thinking that it is. I just wish that it didn't always make me so upset."

America hoped that his voice didn't waver at the end of his sentence. He hoped that Russia didn't expect him to say anything else, as he wasn't sure if his voice would work anymore, due to how constricted his throat was beginning to feel. He turned away, hoping that Russia wouldn't see the tears developing in his eyes. However, it already seemed to be too late for that, as Russia attempted to make everything better, "Fredka, please don't cry. I only wanted to compliment your brother. I wasn't trying to put you down. It's horrible that you can end up feeling this way over a simple compliment directed at another person. Have you always felt like this?"

America shook his head no as a rouge tear slid down his face. Eventually, he mustered up the strength to finally push the metaphoric lump out of his throat, and explained, "No, only when I started to feel depressed."

"I've never dealt with anything like that before, but I hope that this doesn't last forever. Maybe just try to remember that I'm not trying to depreciate you the next time I compliment someone? No one thinks that you're horrible at everything you do, and I personally believe that you're intelligent. Just remember, if anyone truly thinks that you're not worth anything, they're the one who actually has a problem, not you. I'm sure that anyone who is sensible would hate them instead of you. I would hope so, anyways."

After realizing that the last thing he said may have not been convincing, Russia added, "At least I would not like a person who would treat someone as sweet as you with such disrespect. I'm sure that your brother wouldn't either."

At first, America didn't react to what Russia said. Then, Russia nearly flinched when he watched America lunge forward, and pull him into a hug. A smile was now upon the young nation's face, as all he wanted to do was squeeze Russia due to his overwhelming gratitude. He thought that the other nation would surely laugh at him for feeling the way he did, but instead, he had at least tried to make America feel better about the entire situation. America never thought that effort, especially with a lack of experience towards a situation, would fill him with such glee. After holding Russia for a few moments, he'd eventually said, "Thanks, Russia."

Russia finally embraced America as he replied, "You're welcome."

The two nations stayed this way for a few moments before Russia finally spoke up once more, "Why don't we go eat breakfast now? I'm sure that your brother has all of the pancakes made by now."

"Okay," was all America said, as they began to make their way to the kitchen. Breakfast had been rather quick that morning. The pancakes were so delicious, that all three of the nations preferred stuffing their faces over having a pleasant conversation with each other. By the time everyone had eaten as many pancakes as they possibly could, Canada had volunteered to take care of the dishes. At first, Russia tried explaining to him that he didn't have to, and that he would be able to handle them just fine, but since Canada seemed to feel so inclined to do the dishes, Russia had just let him do them, and instead began to focus all of his attention on America as he stated, "I would like to see how well you can read that one book I gave you aloud. Would you like to try that? I think it would really help you with pronunciation, and I can be there to help you pronounce and figure out the meaning of words you don't know."

America thought about this for a few seconds before finally replying with slight hesitation, "I don't know. I'm not sure if I want anyone to hear me read aloud."

"I won't judge you for your ability to read Russian, Fredka. And I'm sure that your brother won't either. Right, Matvey?"

Canada's voice was soft as usual as he replied, "Of course I won't."

America lowered his voice as he asked Russia, "Well, can we at least go somewhere private, where he won't be able to hear me?"

As much as Russia didn't understand why America was acting so insecure about this, especially around his good-natured brother of all people, he decided to answer the young nations question anyways, "Of course we can. Where would you like to go?"

America thought about this for a moment before answering, "That guest's room I'm staying in, maybe?"

"Okay," was all Russia replied with, and with that said, both him and America set off towards said guest room. Once they were at their destination, America lifted the book off of the nightstand, and stated, "I'm only on chapter two."

"Well, then let's see if you can read up to chapter three. I think that the chapters in that book are around ten pages each? I'm sure you can handle it."

America began to crawl onto the bed, as he decided that would be the most comfortable place for him to sit down and read. Once America was all settled in, Russia stated, "I guess I'll go grab the chair from the desk then."

"No," America blurted. He didn't know why, but he suddenly wanted to sit right next to Russia while he read. He felt himself begin to heat up as he requested nervously, "Do you think that you could just sit next to me on the bed instead?"

Russia couldn't help but smile due to how delighted he was about this request (perhaps he seemed a bit too happy about this) as he answered, "Of course I can."

Therefore, America scooched over on the bed to ensure that there would be enough room for Russia to sit next to him. America hid his face from the other nation as Russia began to settle in on the bed, as he began to feel his face heat up due to the close proximity. He assumed that he was just feeling a bit shy about the whole situation, and that was the reason as to why he was blushing. He tried to spend a few moments in order to regain his composure, before finally opening the book, and he began to read.

At first, America had been stuttering a lot, due to the nervous feeling he had, but after the first page was read, he felt himself being pulled into a hug. Of course, Russia's embrace didn't break his concentration, but after a few minutes, the warmth finally helped him relax, and he began to read with much more confidence in his voice. For the most part, America's speech was smooth as he read. The stuttering had completely subsided when he finally relaxed; except for those times when he didn't know how to pronounce a word, which Russia would simply pronounce for him. Sometimes, America would even ask him what a certain word meant, and Russia would always be ready to provide him with a definition.

Russia really enjoyed listening to America read. He could almost compare it to listening to his favorite song, as listening to America speak at all sometimes seemed to give him that spark of excitement. When it didn't give him that spark, which was during the times when America would be using a quiet voice while rambling about something, he would instead find it to be rather soothing. However, there seemed to be something different about the way America would read Russian that seemed to have it's own special charm. His voice was slightly higher in pitch, and he spoke a bit slower than he normally would. The pace made sense to Russia, but not the change in pitch. Perhaps that was just what America sounded like when he was putting a lot of effort in his pronunciations?

Instead of setting the book down after reading through chapter two, America only continued to read chapter three. This came to Russia as a surprise, as he didn't think that America could have ever enjoyed reading any book, but at the same time, he was happy that America didn't want to set the book down just yet. Eventually, by the time that America was finished with both chapters, he finally set the book down, and stated, "My throat's starting to hurt."

"Too much reading?" Russia asked, and after America nodded, he added, "I can understand, chapter three was very long compared to the other chapters. You've also been very quiet during these past couple of months, so you're probably not used to using your voice for long periods of time."

There was a moment of silence, as America's face began to grow pink. He averted his gaze in hopes that Russia wouldn't notice, as he asked in such a shy manner, "Do you think you could read now?"

As much as Russia didn't understand the shy behavior, he found it to be quite adorable, and complied, "Of course."

Therefore, he grabbed the book from America, and began to read. At first, America tried to resist the urge to lean on Russia as the other nation read. Eventually, he found that he was unable to resist, so he snuggled against Russia, and rested his head on the other nation's shoulder. America sighed with relaxation, as Russia's voice was already making him feel sort of sleepy. Of course, he was still far from falling asleep.

At first, Russia found it strange that America was now resting his head on his shoulder, yet he put it off as America just wanting to cuddle.

Eventually, after Russia had finished reading a few chapters, his own throat was beginning to hurt. Therefore, he set the book down on the nightstand, and told America, "I think I'm done reading for the day."

America looked at him, and asked, "Why, is your throat starting to hurt too?"

Russia nodded his head in response. Then, he stood up, and told America, "Why don't you see if your brother wants to hang out with you now? I have something I need to do."

America couldn't help but be somewhat disappointed by this, but he still replied with a simple, "Okay."

It was when Russia finally left the room that America suddenly began to feel a bit empty. He didn't understand why he was suddenly feeling so attached to Russia at that moment, but as he began to search for his brother, he tried his best to convince himself to that he shouldn't even care about that fact that he couldn't be around Russia at that moment.


	14. Chapter 14

A few days had passed by since Russia had spent some time with America to help him out with his reading skills in the Russian language, and the young nation couldn't help but be devastated by the fact that since then, Russia almost never seemed to have enough time to hang out with him. The other nation would often claim that he had a lot of work to do, but America couldn't help but grow suspicious. He was beginning to think that Russia was trying to avoid being around him, and possibly regretted ever taking him into his house and helping him out. Perhaps this was just America's low self esteem making him become paranoid, but he still thought that even if Russia did have a lot of work to do that he would surely still have a bit of free time, aside from the time that he would spend eating, sleeping, or doing other important tasks.

On a brighter note, he and his brother had come up with some things to do with each other. It did take America a while to come up with any suggestions, of course, since his depression seemed to make him lose interest in or think that it would be cringe worthy to participate in almost every activity he could think of. Canada, on the other hand, seemed to be extremely excited about the fact that his brother was suddenly wanting to spend a lot of time with him. That was something America didn't really find surprising though, as almost no one really did spend time with Canada. He was actually beginning to worry that his brother was starting to believe that he didn't want to spend any time with him, as, when America truly thought about it, he seemed to be spending quite a bit of time with Russia, and almost never talked to Canada. That realization had only made America feel as if he was being neglectful, so it was only another reason as to why he wanted to spend more time with Canada.

One thing that really helped America forgive himself for being a bit neglectful towards Canada was when he'd helped his brother give Kumajiro a bath (of course, they'd asked Russia if they would be allowed to wash Canada's polar bear in one of the bath tubs, and he's said it was okay; as long as they cleaned the bath tub they used as soon as they were done). It wasn't necessarily America's favorite think to do. Sure, the polar bear wasn't akin to how cats, and some dogs would act if they realized that they were about to be bathed, and start trying to be as stubborn as possible about staying away from the bath tub. However, the fact that Kumajiro really enjoyed being in water only seemed to be a substituting conflict of the hatred towards being wet that some animals had. Instead, by the time Canada had a small portion of the tub filled, Kumajiro decided to run into the bathroom (he must have heard the running water, and became excited) and jump into the bath tub; causing water to splash all over America and Canada. Even if the polar bear didn't mind having his fur groomed and rinsed, he still seemed to really enjoy pointlessly splashing that water around, and when the two brothers were finally finished cleaning off the overly excited Kumajiro, the polar bear decided to start attempting to shake his pelt dry, causing water to fly everywhere. How his brother could stand becoming completely wet, and having to kneel on a hard, tiled floor just to give an animal a bath, America had no idea.

After spending quite a bit of time with his brother, there had been a span of around eight hours during the three days that Russia was extremely busy where America had forgotten to ask if the nation finally had some free time. During the day America was currently living, he'd even realized that he hadn't checked on Russia since breakfast, and it was already the afternoon. Therefore, America decided to go into the living room, where Russia was currently reading over some papers, and ask, "Hey, Russia? Are you almost finished with your work.?"

Russia suppressed an exhausted sigh, as he answered, "Not yet."

"But you've been working for three days straight now. How much work did your boss give you?"

"Quite a bit, and it all needs to be completed soon. He almost never gives me this much work, though. It just happened. Fortunately, I'm getting close to being done with it. It's going to be a while, though."

"Alright," was all America replied with. Then, he decided to sit down on the couch, and stare into space. After being so bored to the point of the emotion nearly hurting him for around five minute (it felt as if half of an hour passed for him), America suddenly began to realize something about the last time he'd talked to Russia. At first, America had put off Russia's unenthusiastic tone as the other nation feeling indifferent, or even finding the young nation to be a bit annoying at that moment. Then, if he was remembering correctly, he realized that Russia's hair seemed to be a bit disheveled, and that his eyes didn't seem to have that happy glow to them. Instead, it looked as if Russia would've done anything to receive at least a one hour nap. America decided to glance over at Russia in order to confirm whether or not his previous observations were correct, and he couldn't help but become slightly worried to find that they indeed seemed to be right.

Time passed by, and America only continued to worry more about Russia. Usually, it wasn't normal for him to fret over someone over working themselves a bit. It wasn't as if Russia was doing it to himself on purpose either. He had an important job to do, after all, and a deadline that was approaching all too soon. Telling the other nation to just stop working and have an eight solid hours of sleep didn't really seem as if it would help. Even if all of the paper work was due the next day (which it probably was, as there was yet another blizzard outside), being forced to stop working when Russia knew that he was almost done didn't seem as if it would help him relax at all. America knew for sure that it would be pure torture if he was being stopped from completing anymore more work for eight whole hours when he was so close to being finished (he knew that it would be hard for anyone to believe that he would find such a situation relatable, as everyone, even his boss seemed to believe that he was lazy, but he really did try to have his work completed. There just never really seemed to be enough time to do it, and there was so much of it to the point where America would become burnt out, and start daydreaming). Besides, based on his own personal experience, taking a break while being in the middle of completing a bunch of paper work only seem to make him lose the motivation to actually complete his work. Therefore, America decided that it would be best not to interfere, as much as he really wanted to.

By the time Russia was finally finished with his work, he decided to leave the living room in order to put his paper work away for safe keeping, only to return once more in order to say, "You look bored. Why don't I try and teach you how to knit again?"

At first, America seemed to be a bit reluctant of this request, but he eventually decided to comply, "Alright, but can you please try to be a bit slower with your demonstrations this time?"

"Yes, I can."

With that said, Russia retrieved the knitting supplies from the coffee table that had just happened to be there since the last time he'd knitted, and brought out the two needles that America had been working with.

This time when Russia had tried to demonstrate how to make a second row of stitches, America only needed to be shown twice how to do so. It also didn't seem to be too hard for America to figure out how to continue knitting the scarf on his own without Russia directing him. Considering the fact that America seemed to have been really struggling to learn how to knit during his first attempt to teach him, Russia couldn't help but be quite surprised by the fact that America was making it look as if he'd been knitting for a few years. Of course, Russia still had to warn America when it looked as if he was about to make the scarf crooked, and once had to tell him that he was making the stitches a bit too tight, but aside from those few mistakes, Russia definitely believed that America had the potential to become a decent knitter. Of course, America would still have quite a bit to learn before he would be at Russia's level.

Once Russia decided that America would be able to handle knitting a scarf on his own without him constantly directing him in the process and pointing out if he was doing something wrong, Russia eventually decided to say, "Alright, I'm going to let you continue knitting that all on your own now. Just tell me if you need help with anything, okay?"

"Okay," was all America replied with, as the young nation never averted his eyes away from the scarf he was knitting. Despite his tired state, Russia couldn't help but feel a bit elated at the fact that America now seemed to be extremely intrigued with his knitting. As much as Russia had wanted to learn how to knit himself, he really did seem to have quite a hard time trying to learn how. He'd eventually become extremely frustrated during his first attempts. America, on the other hand, could've easily have been compared to the outlier in a classroom full of students that seemed to almost immediately learn every math formula a teacher would try to throw at them, while all of the other kids would stare at the formula as if it was nothing but gibberish.

Once Russia had finally stopped himself from constantly admiring America, he decided to attempt to read the book he'd brought with him. The task, of course, proved not to be easy at all. He was simply too tired to really be interested in what he was reading. Therefore, he decided to set the book down, and close his eyes for a moment in order to try and receive a bit of rest.

Unfortunately, a moment of having his eyes shut quickly turned into him falling straight to sleep. Despite the fact that he didn't really have anything planned that day, Russia would've preferred to stay up until after dinner.

When America looked over at Russia in order to ask him how his scarf looked at the moment, he couldn't help but be somewhat disappointed to find out that the other nation had already fallen asleep. However, when he noticed the seemingly uncomfortable sitting position Russia was in at that moment, that disappointment was replaced with the sudden need to make sure that Russia was comfortable. Therefore, he decided to lay Russia down, and place a pillow under his head. Then, he left the room, only to return a moment later with a thick, soft blanket (it did seem to be a bit drafty in the house at that moment).

At first, America wanted to call it good, but he immediately stopped himself from walking away from Russia when he realized that his scarf was still on. America walked over to the couch to examine that scarf. It was quite a long scarf, there was no doubt about that, and because of that, a concerning thought popped up in America's head, I don't think he'd appreciate it if I removed his scarf, since he always seems to be wearing it, but at that same time, what if he ends up accidentally strangling himself? He wouldn't die, but it'd really hurt him. I'm not sure if the chances of him being strangled are that high, but I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to risk it.

After spending a few more moments to contemplate his decision, America finally decided slowly and carefully (as to not wake Russia up) unravel the scarf. Once that task was completed, he couldn't help but be somewhat shocked to find that there were bandages wrapped around his neck. For a moment, America was unable to take his eyes off of them, but he eventually decided to cover them up with the blanket, as the thought of what could be hiding under them disturbed him a bit.

Then, America decided to leave the living room altogether, and instead sat at the kitchen table as he began to ponder, As much as those bandages disturb me, I still can't help but wonder what's under them. I don't know why he would've needed them recently. Has he always had bandages under his scarf? Has anyone else seen them? Did anyone care when they saw them?

As America continued to mentally ask himself more and more questions, he couldn't help but become even more worried. Although, there was no denying that fact that his curiosity was becoming much stronger than his worry.


	15. Chapter 15

When Russia awoke, the first thing he noticed was that he was extremely groggy. In fact, so much to the point where his body was begging him to go back to sleep. At first, the exhaustion seemed to impair his vision, but it didn't take too long for the blurriness to fade, and for him to start recognizing his surroundings. Soon enough, he realized that he was in the living room of his house, and that judging by how dark it was outside, and the fact that he was still able to see a bit of snow, since the light from the living room's lamp seemed to reflect off of the snow, Russia was unable to tell what time of day it was. Sure, the days were finally becoming a bit longer, as it was now the beginning of March, but that didn't stop the sun from going down some time during the evening.

Since it seemed as if Russia had been napping for quite a long time (and it certainly hadn't been his intention to do so in the first place), he decided that it would be best to start attempting to fully wake himself up. At first, all he did was lay on the couch as he stared at the ceiling with his mind completely blank. Then, as he became more aware of his surroundings, he noticed that someone must have laid him down on the couch and wrap a blanket tightly around his form, as he was sure that he'd fallen asleep while sitting. However, he wasn't too worried about that at the moment, and couldn't help but feel a bit grateful towards whoever decided to try and make him comfortable on the couch while he was asleep.

That was, until he realized that his neck felt more bare than it usually did. Sure, the blanket was covering a part of his neck, but it still felt as if it was being exposed for the world to see. Now panicking somewhat, Russia decided to lift up his arm in order to feel his neck, and sure enough, the only thing he was able to feel was the bandages he'd usually put on there in case his scarf was somehow yanked off.

As soon as he made this discovery, Russia immediately lunged towards the coffee table in order to grab his scarf (he'd just spotted it out of the corner of his eye). Unfortunately, despite the fact that his objective was achieved, he'd still ended up falling down on the floor; due to his recklessness. However, during his moment of extreme urgency, he didn't really care, but instead was more focused on trying to wrap his scarf around his neck in an attempt to cover up the bandages. He knew that this was something he shouldn't have been so worried about. After all, the bandages had been placed around his neck just to ensure that what he was hiding was more likely to stay hidden. Yet, he still was perfectly aware of the fact that it was a bit questionable to walk around with bandages around his neck. Even if he had been around a few people with the bandages exposed before, he'd still had never been able to make himself grow used to the idea of not keeping them hidden.

By the time he had his scarf messily wrapped around his neck, Russia flinched when he heard America's voice ask, "Russia, are you okay?"

"Yes," Russia said in response; all while trying to regain his composure and untangle his legs from the blanket. Despite the fact that Russia still felt quite shaken, America seemed to believe Russia's reassurance without even questioning it, and stated, "Oh, that's good to hear. By the way, me and Mattie made some dinner earlier. I could go reheat some of the leftovers for you if you'd like."

"Okay," was all Russia replied with before America left the room. Once Russia had his legs completely free of the blanket, he decided to head for the nearest bathroom in order to fix his scarf so that it would look decent, instead of being some sloppy coil of cloth around his neck. Then, after Russia had completed that task, he decided to head over to the kitchen table, and begin to wait for his meal to be heated up and served. As soon as the food was served to him, he shoveled some of it into his mouth, and after chewing it up and swallowing it, he stated, "This tastes very good. You both did a great job."

"Thanks," America replied, as he sat down at the table so that he was across from Russia, "Mattie did most of the cooking though."

Soon after that was said, Russia watched America as he drank what looked to be some type of juice with ice cubes in it. Sure, there usually wouldn't be anything suspicious about that. However, Russia seemed to notice that there was something a bit off about the drink as he asked America, "Fredka, what are you drinking?"

America's tone was casual, "Oh, it's just a drink I made with a little bit of vodka."

After answering Russia's question, America was about to resume to drinking, yet he stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed that Russia now seemed to be giving him a glare. Now feeling offended by Russia's sudden disapproval, America asked, "What?"

"Give me the drink, Fredka."

"Why?"

"Just give it to me."

America remained silent, wondering why Russia wanted to take his drink away. The only conclusion he could draw from this situation was that Russia must have not trusted him with alcohol. Of course, he found this to be quite insulting, as he did not at all enjoy the lack of trust he assumed that Russia seemed to have for him at that moment. Therefore, America decided to give Russia a fierce glare; in order to express the fact that he was not happy with the idea of tolerating Russia's sudden change in attitude towards him.

When Russia realized that it didn't seem as if the young nation was going to respond to his request, he sighed and decided to stand up from his chair and walk over to America so that he would be able to snatch the drink from the young nation's hand. However, before Russia could even stretch out his arm in order to do so, America pushed the drink towards the other nation, and snapped, "Fine, just take it!"

Undeterred by the harsh tone, Russia grabbed the glass, which as only a quarter of the way full, before walking over to the sink so that he could dump it out. While America watched the other nation do this, he added mentally, And waste it.

By the time Russia had finished disposing of the drink, he turned to America and stated, "I never told you that you were allowed to get into my vodka, you know."

America scowled at the accusation and retorted, "That's still not a good reason to waste it! Besides, you never get mad at me when I get into anything else without your permission. Also, you have a lot of vodka, so I don't see why you would get mad at me for having a little bit of it."

Russia suppressed a sigh before explaining, "Fredka, this is different. Besides, that's not the only reason I don't want you to get drunk. You're still suffering with depression, and I don't think that it's a good idea for you to be consuming alcohol with that state of mind."

"Yeah, well I wasn't feeling depressed until you decided to come along and take that drink from me, so I don't see what the big deal is. Besides, what do you mean by, 'with that state of mind'? Do you just not trust me or something?"

Russia couldn't help but feel a bit hurt when he heard the last response. It wasn't his intention to try and make America feel as if he couldn't be trusted. Nor was he trying to make it sound as if he thought that America wouldn't be able to control himself if he consumed a bit of alcohol. Russia just didn't want the alcohol to make America feel worse. He knew that based on personal experience, something as strong as vodka was definitely not a healthy thing for someone with depression to drink. Besides, he didn't necessarily want to risk having America deal with an excruciating hangover in the morning. With all of this in mind, Russia decided to explain, "Fredka, I wasn't trying to say that I don't trust you. I just don't want you to drink my vodka mostly because it's going to make you feel terrible if you drink too much of it. Sure, it might make you feel all warm and happy at first, but if you drink enough of it, it will eventually make you feel empty. You know that you still have a tendency to suddenly feel down when you don't even know why, so how do you know if alcohol isn't going to just bring out all of those dark thoughts?"

Russia couldn't help but feel relieved when he noticed that America didn't seem to be as offended as he was before Russia had decided to explain why he didn't want the young nation to drink his vodka, yet he still noticed that there was slight hurt within his expression. Therefore, Russia decided to walk over to America so that he could pull him into a gentle embrace, all in an attempt to make America feel better about the situation as he continued, "From now on, do you think you could avoid drinking any alcohol until both you and I know for sure that you're over your depression? I promise that you're not losing out on anything by avoiding it."

America felt himself relax in Russia's arms, as being held by the other nation almost always seemed to make him feel better about any situation. Then, after a moment of thinking what Russia had said over, he decided to comply to the request, "Alright."

At this, Russia felt a smile appear on his face. Then, he freed America of his embrace so that he would be able to return to his seat and finish up his dinner.

After a moment of silence, America decided to state, "Mattie's going to have to leave first thing in the morning tomorrow."

After swallowing some food, Russia asked, "Why's that?"

"Something came up, and he has to return to his country. He's going to be very busy during the next few weeks, unfortunately."

"Oh, that's too bad," Russia stated, and after a long moment of finishing up his dinner, he added, "We should probably go to bed right now then. Just to make sure that we can say our goodbyes."

With that said, both of the nations prepared to go to bed before heading into their rooms. As America crawled under the covers of the extremely comfortable guest's room bed, he couldn't help but feel a bit empty at the thought of his brother leaving. Sure, he would still have Russia to keep him company, but Russia's house seemed to be much more lively with three people than it did with only two. Even if the third person did sometimes seem invisible. Well, perhaps there would be another time in which America would soon be able to hang out with both Russia and Canada.


	16. Chapter 16

At first, America hadn't been too keen on the fact that he had to wake up early in order to say goodbye to his brother. After all, he'd finally fallen asleep somewhere around eleven o'clock, and was awoken at five in the morning. However, after having a decent breakfast, and being provided with a half hour in order to wake up fully, America was beginning to feel a bit more enthusiastic about the day. Despite the fact that he was not only sleep deprived, but he would have to wait for a while in order to see his brother again.

Once Canada had all of his belongings packed, and was in the living room near the front door, Russia and America had decided to gather around him. Russia was the first one to speak, "We're going to miss you, Matvey. Feel free to visit again whenever you'd like."

After this was said, Russia stepped towards Canada so that he could pull the shy nation into a tight hug. The affection caused Canada to blush with slight embarrassment, as if he wasn't used to being hugged. Once he seemed to have regained some of his composure, though, he finally decided to reply, "Th-thanks for the offer."

Once Canada was freed of the embrace, he decided to face his brother and say, "Goodbye, Alfred. It was nice to spend some time with you, and I hope that you only continue to get better."

The enthusiasm that America had obtained from that morning immediately faltered after hearing the farewell. It was then that he seemed to remember that his brother was going to be gone for a while, and that he was going to be stuck in Russia's lonely house until the next meeting. However, America tried to hide this sudden bout of disappointment with a smile, as he replied, "Thanks, I hope things go well for you too."

With that said, Canada exited the house through the front door. Once America made sure that his brother was completely gone from the view of the living room window, he set off towards the couch with despondency. His brother had only been away for five seconds, and he was already beginning to be affected by the lack of company. He didn't understand why it seemed to affect him so much. It wasn't as if he'd ever really felt disappointed when someone had to leave. It was almost as if he was developing some abandonment issues.

In an attempt to try and find a way to rid himself of the empty feeling, he decided to grab the ball of yarn and two needles he was working with. Perhaps doing something productive, yet enjoyable would make his life seem a bit more lively. He hadn't really done much knitting since Russia had tried teaching him, so he figured that doing this might also make up for the fact that he was hardly doing it. Maybe if America knitted the scarf well enough, Russia would even become proud of him. Even if it did make him seem a bit greedy, he did desire to hear a bunch of flattery from the other nation. As far as America was concerned, he didn't really seem to have a talent. Instead, it seemed as if most people thought of him as being full of nothing but flaws. To him, it seemed as if the only thing that wasn't a flaw with him was his super strength. America found it quite funny that it was always those who seemed to be perfect that received the most hate. Especially since he thought of himself as the mirror opposite of those individuals, and yet people were equally as annoyed with him.

After what seemed to be hours of non-stop knitting, America couldn't help but suddenly grow tired of the activity. Therefore, he set the scarf he was working on down. At first, America thought that he was going to be stuck having to sit there in complete boredom. Then, coincidentally, his prediction was immediately debunked, as Russia immediately entered the room and asked him, "Would you like me to take you out to a nice restaurant?"

Shocked by the question, America had no idea how to respond. It'd been quite a while since someone offered to take him out to eat. Perhaps in the past, he would be thrilled with the idea of someone being generous enough to spend a bit of money so that he could have a delicious meal. However, the offer at that moment made him feel both guilty and pressured. The thought of having someone spend a bunch of money just so that he could have a lovely meal was completely cringe-worthy to him. The worst part of it was the fact that he hardly had any money left on him. He'd ended up spending most of it the last time he went shopping with Russia. What made him feel anxious was the fact that he was now being offered to go out in public. The last time he'd gone out (which had only been about five days ago, and he was with the company of both Russia and Canada), he'd felt extremely uncomfortable being around so many people at once. He knew that this was because he'd hardly been socializing with more than two people for quite a long time. It made sense that he was suddenly growing wary around groups of people, but he still wasn't happy about this at all. He found it down right embarrassing.

Despite the fact that he knew Russia wanted to buy him some food at a restaurant, he still decided to use the first excuse that came to his mind, "I don't think that's a good idea right now. I don't think I'll be able to afford it."

"Oh no, Fredka. Don't worry about that," Russia assured, "I was planning on buying you a meal."

With a blush of embarrassment creeping upon his face, America turned his head away from Russia and replied, "Y-yes, I know."

There was a moment of silence before Russia finally said, "You really don't need to feel nervous about this. I don't mind the idea of buying you a meal."

"Yeah, but you've already spent a lot of money on me."

"Please, Fredka? I would really like to spend more time with you outside of the house. Aren't you becoming tired of being stuck in this house all the time?"

America thought about this for a few moments. It didn't seem as if Russia really wanted to take no for an answer. Why Russia was so dead set on buying him a meal, America had no idea, as he would've thought that most people would be angry with him is he wasn't able to pay for his own food. At first, he was hesitant to reply. Sure, he was sort of becoming less guilty about the fact that he couldn't pay for his own meal, but that didn't stop him from feeling nervous about the idea of being surrounded by a bunch of stranger. Eventually though, he was able to push himself to reply, as he didn't want to keep Russia waiting for a reply or disappoint him, "Okay, I'll go."

Russia smiled at this response, and told him, "Why don't you get ready then?"

America complied to the request, but soon after he put on some boats, Russia presented him with a different jacket from the one he was used to wearing. This one looked much less warm than the last one, which made America inquire, "Isn't it cold outside? How come you're giving me something more thin to wear?"

"Yes, it's still a little cold outside," Russia began, "but for whatever reason, it's warm enough outside that the snow is beginning to melt. I don't know why. It usually doesn't at this time of year, but maybe it's only going to be warm for a short while, and we'll go back to having some normal weather."

"But what if its still too cold for me outside? I mean, I know that I've been here for a while, but I'm still not able to handle the cold as well as you can."

"Then I'll just let you wear my jacket."

After that, America finished dressing for the somewhat cold weather before following Russia outside. Once they were out on the front steps however, Russia exclaimed, "I forgot to take care of the steps this morning!"

America jumped at this statement; not at all expecting Russia to raise his voice, as the nation was not one to often do that. Then, he glances down at the steps to find that they were completely covered with wet ice. America wasn't sure how his brother had managed to walk down such slippery looking steps, but at the same time, he just figured that that was something northern nations were able to do without any trouble. Sure, he had Alaska, and some other areas in his country that could become quite chilly at times, but he also had some extremely warm places as well. He knew that back in the older days that there were some people who didn't even know what snow was, and would freak out when they saw it, until someone explained to them what was going on. He was sure that now though, with the media, that everyone had probably at least heard of snow.

Eventually, Russia suppressed a sigh as he stated, "I know that this is probably going to take a while, but why don't you wait while I take care of these steps?"

It was true that America didn't really want to walk down those stairs, since they looked extremely dangerous, yet he was growing tired of feeling hunger claw at his stomach. Therefore, he decided to say, "Why don't we just go anyways? It's only a few steps. And besides, it doesn't look like the pathway to the car is any better anyways."

"Alright, Fredka. But be very careful. I would hate to see you get hurt."

"Okay," and with that said, America began to walk carefully down the steps as Russia followed behind him. Even as he tried to find areas of the steps that weren't slippery, though, and even when he set his foot down slowly and forcefully and grabbed tightly onto the railing, he was still finding it to be extremely hard to keep his balance. Eventually, by the time he reached the third step going down, he felt his gut drop as his foot began to slide. In fact, if it wasn't for the strong arms that grabbed him, and supported him, he was sure that he was going to slip and experience a world full of pain. Soon, he found himself being stood up properly once more. He was sure that there was a high chance that he was probably not going to end up being injured just from slipping down the stairs, but at the same time, he didn't want to imagine how embarrassing and painful that would be. Not that he already didn't find it embarrassing enough that he was feeling shaky at that moment. At the same time though, he couldn't help but feel grateful for the fact that Russia wasn't laughing at him. He knew that many other people in the world would probably end up laughing until they literally died if they saw him not only slip on some ice, but become frightened after doing so. He wasn't going to lie, he would probably laugh if that had happened to another person as well. Instead, Russia wrapped an arm around him and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," America replied, and then asked, "How come you're not laughing about this? I mean, it would be extremely annoying if you were, but I know that a lot of other people would probably laugh until their gut exploded, or something."

"Well, luckily for you, I don't have that sense of humor. Unless someone truly deserved it, I do not see what is so funny about witnessing someone else's adversity."

Then, before the two nations set off down the stairs once more, Russia added, "Try to be more careful."

Fortunately, America didn't seem to have as much trouble navigating towards Russia's car. Nor was he shivering, as he usually did during the other times he'd been outside in Russia. It didn't even seem as if Russia needed to spend a bit of time to heat up the car or rid the windows of any ice or snow, as soon after they entered the car, Russia immediately began to drive.

Not too long afterwards, they were at the restaurant. Once they were inside of the building, America couldn't help but instinctively begin to sort of hide behind Russia. Sure, there weren't too many people in the restaurant, but to America, they were complete strangers, and he hoped that none of them would decide to look at him. Besides, it'd been a while since he'd ever been at a restaurant, so he felt completely out of place at that moment.

Fortunately, though, the waitress didn't delay on bringing them to a table. Sure, America wasn't one-hundred percent sure about what Russia was telling the waitress, but to him, it sounded as if Russia wanted them to sit in some corner. Perhaps the other nation was able to sense the fact that America was feeling extremely nervous at that moment, and wanted to try and make things better for him. At first when they arrived at the table, America was still feeling a bit out of place, but soon enough, when he realized that he was far away from the other people in the restaurant, and that no one would probably even be able to hear them anyways, he was able to relax.

After that, America didn't seem to have a hard time telling the waitress what he wanted to drink. However, he found it to be quite difficult to read the menu, as he didn't really know the name of any Russian dishes, and was hardly able to understand the descriptions of what was being offered. Eventually, after spending quite a while of trying to figure out what the menu said, he eventually gave up, and asked Russia, "I can't read the menu. Do you think you could just order for me? Or maybe tell me what some of these dishes are?"

After a moment of thought, Russia stated, "Well, you could try some pelmeni. There pretty much meat dumplings with diced onions. I'm sure you'll like them."

"That does sound kind of good. I guess I'll have that then."

Despite the fact that the description for the food did seem as if it would be a bit vague to some, America was too hungry at the moment to really care about the complexity of his meal. He wasn't necessarily one to be picky either. When it did come time to order, America couldn't help but appreciate the fact that Russia ordered the meal for him, instead of having him do it himself. After all, America was sure that he would've done a horrible job of ordering his meal, as he couldn't even remember the name of the dish that Russia had recommended to him. There was no way that the waitress would be able to understand him, and would probably eventually end up being ignored for speaking poor Russian.

The wait for the food was long, quite, and agonizing. The scent of food was certainly not helping either. Instead, it seemed to make the hunger pangs he was feeling even worse. He didn't understand why he was feeling so hungry at that moment. He'd had quite a bit for breakfast, and that had only been a few hours ago. Perhaps this was all just a sign that his appetite was really beginning to come back. In a way, he hated it, but at the same time, he was relieved. He was growing sick of not being able to eat much and gagging before he was even able to finish what he deemed a decent amount of food. Besides, eating 'too much' while he lacked an appetite never seemed to make him feel full. Instead, he just felt somewhat hungry, and yet he knew that he would not be able to consume more in order to satisfy his stomach.

At last, the food had finally arrived, and almost as soon as the waitress left, he began to dig in. Apparently though, he must have been eating way too quickly, as he was told by Russia, "Could you please slow down a bit? You're going to choke if you keep forcing so much food down your throat at once."

"I'm sorry," America replied, after swallowing a mouth full of food, "It's just that this food is really good. Almost as good as your cooking."

Russia was taken aback by the compliment. He was almost never praised for his cooking. In all honesty, he didn't even think he was too great at it. Feeling his face begin to heat up, Russia countered, "Are you sure that this food isn't better than my cooking?"

"I don't know, Russia. To me, when it comes to picking which nation can make the best food, you give France quite a bit of competition."

At that point, Russia wasn't even sure if he was able to look at America. There were many things that could easily make Russia become shy, and compliments were one of them, since for him, they were rare to come by. Couple that with the fact that they were coming from his love interest, and they certainly began to mean one-hundred times more to him than a compliment from anyone else. In a quiet, weak voice, Russia found the strength to respond to the praise, "Thank you, Fredka."

By the time they were both finished eating, America couldn't help but feel pleasantly surprised that the meal was actually able to fill him. A warm feeling developed in his stomach. Of course, this feeling was beginning to be more common for America, but he still couldn't help but feel extremely appreciative towards it. Paired with the fact that he was in the company of Russia, the feeling was ten times better than it normally would be. He didn't understand why he was beginning to feel so gleeful around Russia, but considering the fact that he was able to spend a large amount of his time around the other nation, he wasn't about to question it.


End file.
